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A service person recently showed up for a non-essential task that would involve a significant disruption to my rewilded yard. He put his supervisor on speaker to explain that I wanted the service rescheduled and said, “the yard is covered in overgrown weeds”, I instinctively reacted to clarify that the yard was a “wildlife sanctuary filled with expensive native plants”. I’ve found that articulating how specialized and pricey the landscape is helps quickly frame the value of the yard for someone who doesn’t understand what they’re looking at. In this situation it made a case for not being charged because I didn’t want the work done during the growing season.
My carefully planned and diverse layered tapestry of native plant communities and habitat elements is one of the most thoughtfully landscaped yards in my neighborhood. Yet for people unfamiliar with this kind of non-traditional yard, it could be viewed as overgrown or weedy. A neighbor who has blessedly since moved had a yard crew that terrorized the edges of my yard every week. The first time the neighbor had them mow and blow I was out, and by the time I came home the crew had pulled up a 15 by 2-foot strip of plants along a low prairie style fence between my front yard and the neighbor’s driveway. They looked bemused by how panicked I was when I told them to stop and one of the workers smiled reassuringly and held up a handful of the plants he had removed and said “weeds”. The strip was planted with over a dozen varieties of native plants including the vines growing on my fence. I took a few calming meditative breathes and started picking up individual lifeless plants from the various piles they had made and said $10 as I pointed to each plant with a root attached. The confident smile quickly faded. The original native plants that have spread and filled in to make a living mulch throughout my yard may have come from local native plant nurseries, friends, native plant swaps, or winter sowing but it helped to communicate the situation by stating the actual cost to replace each native plant they pulled up which would be well over $500 because of how dense and mature the plant community along the fence was.
There is little I could have done to prevent either of these situations – my habitat yard has clear “cues to care” to give context and show intentionality for anyone who takes a second to look around. I see no reason to defend my landscape choices or apologize if they don’t get it - the same way folks with lawn-centric landscapes don’t feel the need to seek acceptance of their yard’s aesthetics.
The term cues to care has always bothered me a little because it’s used as a tool to encourage making yards designed for nature more relatable and acceptable to the folks with yards that are destroying nature; with the idea that this will eventually change minds. It hasn’t.
A little digging into the origin of the term was enlightening. Cues to care was coined almost 30 years ago in 1995 by Joan Nassauer, a landscape architect professor, in a paper titled Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames and explores the inherent tension between the horticultural and ecological perspective. The premise is in the title: ecological function is messy, and landscape design offers the neatness and order to place it in a recognizable cultural context. In the paper there are some hard truths about the human condition and social convention to explain why people don’t always live their values - but overall, the conclusion is decided in the premise, and it’s been repeated and supported for decades.
In 2018 Mark Hostetler, an urban ecologist wrote a blog post on the Nature of Cities site pointing out that the (small number of) cues to care studies on record are biased towards a lawn-centric aesthetic which impacts their decisions about the cues needed for making ecological landscapes more culturally acceptable. He suggests the possibility that education, raising awareness, and having more examples of ecologically friendly yards as models might work better to gauge what cues to care are needed for broader cultural acceptance of eco-friendly yards. This approach makes more sense than focusing so much on the kinds of cues to care needed to fit in with a lawn culture that is becoming as outdated and uncool as smoking in restaurants or plastic straws. The act of making our own yards an example of what is possible can be one of the most powerful ways we can put our words into action and reinforce the changes needed. The more rewilded yards there are the more accepted rewilded yards will become.
The ecological conversation and cultural language around yards is not what it was 30 years ago when the cues of care concept originated in response to a new and slowly growing natural gardening movement. We’re in a biodiversity crisis exemplified by the widely known 85% Monarch butterfly population decline in just the last 20 years. We don’t have 30 more years to do better. People are changing their landscape preferences because of an increased awareness around the basic ecology of a yard. Eco-friendly design elements are dominant landscape trends and include naturalistic plantings, rain gardens, rewilding, stumperies, attracting insects, and wildlife meadows. To go along with the increasing cultural awareness around the alarming state of nature and the growing popularity of more sustainable landscape choices we need to flip the narrative to reframe and update the list of cues to care to double down on helping folks with both rewilded and traditional yards consider ways they can be more ecologically friendly. (Video: I believe the habitat support my rewilded offers is understood and even appreciated in my neighborhood even if others aren’t yet doing the same. A lone monarch migrating through the neighborhood found habitat support right next to the road on blue mistflower (Conoclinium), aster, and bidens alba growing in my rewilded right-of-way strip.)
All homeowners have some sort of cues to care no matter what their yard situation is - most of the cues just look a little different in an ecologically informed yard. In addition to expansive lawns, standard and horticultural cues from the ornamental landscaping world that are often incompatible with a yard’s natural processes are absent from a rewilded yard’s care cues such as lonely plants in mulched garden beds; deadheaded flowers; color coordinated seasonal non-native bedding plants (e.g. mums in fall, kale in winter, pansies in spring, and petunias in summer) unnaturally shaped evergreen shrubs; dyed mulch; seasonal plant clean-up; and leafless yards.
For rewilded, ecologically informed yards the cues to care in place can be reframed as an opportunity to lead by example, educate, and raise awareness, not necessarily a way to fit into an ornamental landscape framework (although many can be worked into a more traditional landscape in some way). The following is a list of cues to care that might be found in yards designed to increase biodiversity and coexist with wildlife. Hopefully they will inspire ways to think of cues to care in an ecological light.
Ecologically Friendly Cues to Care in a Rewilded Yard
Hardscapes
Homes have hardscapes of some sort regardless of landscape choices. This is the non-living framework of a yard and can include driveways, walkways, stairs, patios, decks, porches, fences, retaining walls, and sidewalks. In a rewilded yard they can help delineate the spaces people use from the areas being shared with nature. The cues to care of using ecologically friendly hardscapes might also include things like permeable pavers; sustainable or reclaimed natural wood for outdoor structures; and dead hedges as fences.
Paths: Paths are not unique to rewilded yards as they are essential for access to outside spaces. I have informal and narrow paths with slate pieces that meander throughout my yard and intersect and complement the hardscapes. This makes it easy to change the paths as my yard evolves. Stone, gravel, or natural matter such as leaves or pine needles (if there are pine trees around) can line paths. Arborist wood chips are another organic option, but other kinds of mulch or baled pine straw need to be used with caution because they could contain pesticides or other chemicals that can harm the ecosystem.
Path Edging: Edging a path with fallen or cut branches is an opportunity to keep natural matter on the property and contribute to wildlife habitat and might include bricks, rocks, or low fencing. Wattle edging is a charming way to line paths using natural matter if you have the talent and time to make your own.
Keeping Impervious Surfaces Clear: In most situations, the cues to care to keep impervious surfaces such as the sidewalk and driveway clear of plants flopping in them and free of natural matter on them is the same in all yards. Cues to ecological care means not using noise and air polluting gas-powered landscape equipment and leaving leaves and other natural matter such pinecones and acorns in the yard by sweeping or gently raking from surfaces and placing them somewhere else in the yard.
Yard Decorations: Art or decorative pieces reflecting a homeowner’s personality and style is an optional way to add a human touch to a rewilded space - as long as it doesn’t harm wildlife with features such as turning parts or artificial lights. Habitat elements such as bird baths, feeders, and nesting boxes can also double as beautifully crafted pieces of art in the yard.
Habitat Support Elements: A range of functional habitat support elements offer cues to care that indicate the decisions made are ecologically informed and the yard is intentionally welcoming for wildlife.
Water sources can be anything from a saucer to a wildlife pond. Even my welcoming water station for neighborhood dogs is also used by birds and other wildlife.
Bird feeders, including hummingbird feeders are a controversial habitat support element. Ideally, a yard designed for wildlife offers all the food they might need. If you choose to add one or more feeders and they are placed safely in the yard and kept clean they can offer supplemental food for birds, make a connection to local wildlife, and give an educational glimpse into the diversity of birds in the neighborhood.
Bird nesting boxes are manmade habitat features. During nesting season, bluebirds can be seen feeding their babies from sunrise to sundown on one of the bluebird boxes on poles that are not far from my front sidewalk.
Snags at least six feet high can serve as a place for birds and other wildlife to use for nesting, foraging, perching, and shelter if local ordinances permit them.
Wildlife nesting boxes for bats, squirrels possums and other wildlife signals peaceful coexistence with the urban wildlife where habitat loss and fragmentation is an issue.
Bug snugs using natural materials can be used to create an unusual (and delightful sounding!) insect habitat
Dead Hedges made from natural matter in the yard can function as a fence boundary that also offers the habitat support of a brush pile.
Woven compost baskets made from natural matter are a unique way to decompose natural matter
Stumperies are a trending natural design feature involve arranging natural stumps and logs to create a habitat haven for all sorts of wildlife including skinks, snakes, small urban animals, insects, and birds. As the logs in a stumpery decompose, they contribute to the woodland ecosystem by recycling nutrients.
Planters Filled with native plants can align with the aesthetic of the yard and the habitat value it offers wildlife.
Wildlife considers the planters on my patio and back deck as an extension of the yard.
Trellises and arbors are more aesthetically aligned if made from natural materials, but any kind of native plant support structures still supports habitat - and if there aren't many shrubs around might even serve as a perch for birds to rest when foraging.
Rain Barrels showcase support for an ecologically functioning yard where storm water runoff, flooding, erosion, and outside water usage is reduced. (Rain barrels come in all sorts of sizes and shapes for every kind of look)
Ways to Raise Awareness and Educate
Plant Labels - Identifying plants can be an educational tool for sharing the function of native plants. I’ve labeled hundreds of my plants using metal markers that last for years and waterproof labels that can be printed with detailed information including common and Latin names, growing conditions, height, the wildlife a plant supports, and even that the plant is native.
Yard Certification Signs - A yard can be elevated as a lofty nature destination and profile the wildlife coexisting in it with any number of yard certifications. I have a variety of yard certifications from both local organizations (Trees Atlanta, Birds Georgia, Georgia Native Plant Society, UGA Cooperative Extension, and Monarchs Across Georgia) and national organizations (Xerces Society, National Wildlife Federation, Wild Ones, Monarch Waystation, North American Butterfly Association, and Firefly Conservation & Research).
Educational Yard Signs: Seasonal and informational yard signs as an ecological cue to care raise awareness about healthy yard practices such as leaving the leaves, being pesticide free, not using gas-powered leaf blowers, and using native plants for pollinators. I change mine out every couple months to attract more interest.
Nature Center Kiosk: I’ve repurposed a Little Free Library (LFL) into a Nature Center kiosk filled with information flyers for how to create a healthy yard. There are also nature stickers and temporary tattoos for kids because my yard is on the route to the local elementary school. Free native plants in a box at the base of the nature kiosk help folks get started. I’ve seen other LFLs turned into a source for books about nature or a community seed exchange.
The ways to educate, raise awareness, and showcase your yard as a wildlife habitat are endless - and each one adds to the positive cultural acceptance of ecologically friendly yards!
Note: There are no affiliate links in this blog. The highlighted text throughout the post might be references, details, explanations, worthy organizations or businesses, or examples that I think might be helpful.