Not long ago I wrote a post about helping your neighbors learn to love wildlife (and your wildlife garden), where we began a discussion about the ways we can educate our neighbors about the value of wildlife in the garden.
I continue to be very interested in the many ways each of you encourages your neighbors to make positive choices for the environment in their gardens. It’s a form of crowdsourcing, where we are building a useful library that all of us can draw inspiration from.
So if you haven’t already, head over there right now and give us your suggestions.
Anyway, Betsy Franz left a wonderful comment in which she quoted from her book, How to Take Care of Your Share of the Planet: Exploring, Restoring and Protecting Your Share of Planet Earth.
Here’s what she said:
I think that the best thing we can do is to continue to set a good example for our neighbors. It took awhile for re-usable shopping bags to catch on, but they did. Hopefully, wildlife friendly landscapes will follow suit.
Below is an excerpt from the book How to Take Care of Your Share of the Planet
How to Influence Others
Educate Your Neighbors. Adjacent yards with wildlife habitats are even more effective. Share seeds, cuttings and informa-tion with neighbors that are interested in creating their own habitat.
Share your stories, your pictures and your journal with neighbors and friends. Enthusiasm for wildlife is contagious!
Have your yard certified in the National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat program. Erect a sign and display it proudly.
Share cuttings and seeds of native plants or wildlife friendly plants at garden club meetings or plants swaps.
Remember, your goal is to educate, encourage and assist, never coerce. Enthusiastic wildlife gardeners are much better received than arrogant or extreme environmentalists are.
Submit wildlife friendly topic ideas to local newspapers.
Help schools to create schoolyard habitats or butterfly gar-dens.
Open your yard to garden tours and explain your wildlife ha-bitat elements to visitors.
Participate in on-line wildlife and garden forums.
Give a copy of How To Take Care of Your Share of the Planet as a gift.
When I replied to Betsy’s comment, I said that I’d love to review her book for you. Well, I received a copy in the mail yesterday morning. Thank you, Betsy!
This small book is chock full of great ideas, from keeping a habitat journal of your garden, to planning your wildlife garden, protecting groundwater, gardening with nature not against it, and encouraging your neighbors to also start making more beneficial choices for the environment.
I’ve kept a journal of my garden since we bought this house in 2001. It’s so helpful to look back and see which day I should expect the first hummingbird, when does my Cardinal Flower bloom, or when the first Monarch will arrive.
This book has lots of great tips for keeping your wildlife journal up to date. I try to enter my sightings every day because I don’t want to forget anything.
The section on getting to know your property is really important. You should do this before you do anything at all in your garden so that you will be able to put the right plant in the right place.
Betsy has sections on butterfly gardening, bird gardening, pollinator gardening, dragonflies, and other wildlife. All in all, this would be a good choice to add to your reference library. It’s got loads of useful tips for planning your habitat garden and becoming a steward of your little piece of the planet.
So, how are you taking care of your share of the planet? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.
© 2010, Carole Brown. All rights reserved.
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Thanks so much, Carole, for the kind words. The hummingbirds and cardinals and barred owls and all the other little critters in my landscape thank you for helping to protect their habitat!
You’re welcome, Betsy. And thank you for sending along your book. I really enjoyed reading it. May you have many more Hummingbirds, Cardinals, and Barred Owls!
I donated a copy of this book as the door prize at our last chapter meeting for the Florida Native Plant Society in Osceola County FL. Full of good information and a new addition to my “recommended reading” list!
That’s a good list. I will add to that: invite the neighborhood children into your yard. They will love the insects that you show them, and they’ll come back again later to look and learn more. If their parents are of the Chem Lawn mindset, the kids will take home an enthusiasm for nature that may have more of an impact on their parent’s yard choices than anything you could say directly to them.
Michelle Clay´s last blog ..Solar Cone Environment Data
Michelle, can you believe the ChemLawn greenwashing that’s going on? Renaming themself “TruGreen” and attempting to sponsor Earth Day! It is just so appalling.
We live on a corner lot — which is good and bad.
Good, because being a smaller town, we tend to get a lot of foot traffic by our yard, and that leads to conversations.
Bad, because some of the more skittish creatures tend to seek over with every car that goes by at a rate of 1-2 every 5 minutes during busier times. Fortunately, we have some good cover and so they don’t go far. Often only a few feet to one of the big, er, here comes my ignorance, conifery, piney, christmas trees in the front.
I think good neighbors respond to good neighbors. I assume they think we’re a little wacky in some of our choices, but they also see that we care about our yard and our community.
When we lives in the suburbs, someone actually poisoned our birdseed — and the two most likely candidates knew we had dogs who could have been made sick by it. Now we live in an area that borders tons of wilderness, and even in town folks tend to value it more — even most hunters.
I think there’s no better example that just allowing people to see the benefits. The busy hummingbird feeders. (One of my fave moments of last summer was sitting on the front porch with a clipping in a glass of water sitting next to me, and while I waited for my husband to show up with a shovel, a hummingbird decided to have a snack. So close.) Sitting out at the pond with a glass of wine. The sound of running water. Bird houses in surprising places. A sense of whimsy. A place with areas which draw the gaze. Not only do I feel like I’m enjoying wildlife, but that I’m adding something to the community, and sharing the joy of warmer weather with all who pass by.
It took a while, but we have finally registered our yard as a Certified Wildlife Habitat. I’m hoping an “official” designation coupled with the wonderful advice above will serve to encourage our neighbors. I’ll keep you posted!
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