What We Do in Our Own Yard Matters

What we do in our own yard matters. Yet, there is often a disconnect between local ecology and political environmentalism. Its as if caring and acting where our voice and action matters on bigger environmental issues such as climate change, deforestation in far away places, or protecting our public natural spaces somehow has nothing to do with what we do in the outdoor spaces we are stewards of.

A climate action sign plopped down in an expansive lawn is an example of how political activism and local ecology are often not on the same page.

Where I live is an example of what it means to not live our values. There is a wide chasm between thought and action when it comes to environmentalism. If I talk to just about anyone in my neighborhood, they will agree that the climate is changing and animatedly talk about the environment from a political perspective and share how big green initiatives are the solution. They don’t want to engage in deeper conversations about the complexities around how some of these efforts are now harming local ecosystems like wind turbines that are killing hundreds of thousands of birds and close to a million bats each year in North America; massive solar farms that are disrupting habitat and killing tens of thousands of birds; or the issues around dark costs related to renewable energies.

Unimaginably extensive solar farms like this are designed to solve an environmental problem but are creating a host of new ones. (Solar panels in the Mojave desert, near Lake Tamarisk. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright/The Guardian)

There is often surprisingly little interest in issues that have a direct impact on local ecology. In Atlanta I'm amazed at how blasé people are about our city leaders letting developers clear cut so much of our tree canopy in real time for a future urban density utopia where the idea is growth outside the city will slow down and the trees there will be protected. (If you happen to live in the City of Atlanta, please read THIS from the Trees Atlanta site. Take action NOW to urge our city leaders to close the Tree Protection Ordinance gap. If implemented without the suggested changes, it will continue to put our tree canopy at risk of going below the threshold necessary to offer ecological benefits such as cooling air temperatures and reducing the urban heat island effect; improving air quality; mitigating stormwater flooding; and providing vital urban wildlife habitat.)

I chose an image of a white oak tree I planted in my 1/4 Atlanta yard as a more hopeful message about the impact every person can have in their own outside space. I want to counterbalance the helplessness around environmental issues that often lead to only trying to impact large organizational and institutional changes without considering what we can do outside our front door.

If I bring up the 30% bird loss and decline in insect abundance and diversity in just the last 50 years or the alarming butterfly decline in just the last 20 years and mention that pesticides are one of the top contributing factors for both the bird and insect loss, interest fades fast. If I talk in some way about how important native plants are for supporting habitat for butterflies, bumblebees, or birds, my younger neighbors in particular kindly humor me as if I’m going off topic and yammering on about my gardening hobby. They don’t seem to understand that I’ll be gone when their children or grandchildren are grown and living in a world where they can only see many of our now declining butterfly, bumblebee, and bird species in museums.

The America bumblebee population has declined 90% in just the last 20 years with pesticide loss and habitat loss as top reasons. When I talk to neighbor's or friends about restoring habitat in our yards using native plants, they think I'm talking about gardening. I'm not.

It’s much easier for people to not even think about how their own sterile yards, where multiple services are exterminating insects, might have anything to do with the biodiversity crisis.

The folks hiring this mosquito spraying service that is destroying the biodiversity of the local ecosystem don't stop to consider the cascading negative impact of their actions.

Most people can easily convince themselves that native plants are just a trendy landscaping choice they don’t need to care about because they’re not interested in gardening. They don’t want to hear that the effort needed to create n ecologically informed landscape is the same as the one needed to create a lawn. The difference is, once established, a dynamic natural landscape filled with native plants just needs to be managed as it evolves to edit out ambitious plants or replace unhappy plants.

My rewilded yard is fairly self sustaining and most of my time spent outside is just enjoying it. The main work I do is editing out plants that are overambitious to pot them up and give away; replacing plants that weren't the right plant for the right place; and keeping impervious surfaces such as walkway clear of natural matter.

Long term, lawns, non-native shrubs, and flower beds filled with non-native plants require more work overall to look the same and need to be constantly maintained with lots of unsustainable inputs such as water, pesticides, fertilizer, or fuel for gas-powered yard equipment.

Weekly mow and blow crews and other routine services maintain this well taken care of yet unsustainable lawn centered landscape. (Every time I walk by this darling house I imagine how charming it would look with a little front yard meadow!)

The bigger picture in this case is a matter of education and raising awareness on a larger level than me writing about these issues, reaching out at in-person events, or being the only rewilded yard on the street.

I do everything I can to raise awareness around creating wildlife habitat where we live including donating my time to speak to local organizations such as gardening groups; neighborhood associations; community groups; or ecologically aligned organizations that want to elevate this message. (This was taken at the Garden Club of Senoia)

I continue to reach out because I know that what each of us does matters. Protecting our local ecology is the one thing everyone with a yard or even a patio can do - and every yard safe for wildlife adds up. Each action reinforces and contributes to the overall cultural shift already happening. Various studies back up the idea that adding native plants to small areas can exponentially increase biodiversity.

Even planters can be used to create wildlife friendly habitat. The critters in my yard consider my planters filled with native plants an extension of the yard.

This is why I will continue to be loud and opinionated on my keyboard and gently informative in person. Over time my words and actions and the popular culture will meet. The sooner the better. At that point, instead of putting signs with platitudes showing support for things like science or climate action on monoculture lawns that are harming our world, homeowners, who I believe sincerely care about the health of our world, will instead start replacing their lawns with ecologically informed yards that support biodiversity and help repair our world. If they put up a sign to signal they care, the yard will at least match the message.

I'm convinced ecologically informed rewilded yards like this one are the future of landscaping. In this yard I visited, the design that includes arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum), American alumroot (Heuchera americana), native sedges (Carex), and ferns fits into a landscape aesthetic that can easily be embraced as an alternative to a lawn centered yard.

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