cathyweston

5 Projects to Make Your Home Landscape More Eco-Friendly

Spring is definitely on its way, and if you haven’t plotted out your gardening strategy for this year, here are some suggestions for incorporating more native plants into your garden – simple ways for home gardeners to make their home garden more attractive to pollinators and wildlife, more sustainable, and more beautiful Even if it’s just a few plants, every bit matters – Doug Tallamy, in his book Nature’s Best Hope, explains why this is important.

By planting our home landscapes with a diversity of native species, we will be enriching our lives with more pollination services, more free pest control, more rainwater held within land for our use; more bluebirds, orioles, and pileated woodpeckers in our yards, more swallowtails and monarchs sipping nectar from our flowers.

This post will actually be the slides I used at a recent presentation at the Atwood House in Chatham. Enjoy, and let’s get gardening!

Project 1: Plant a Native Tree

The best native trees for Cape Cod.
Some smaller trees to consider.

Project 2: Replace Bark Mulch with a Living Mulch

Left: Before image
Left: The Before space, digitally redesigned with a living mulch. Right, some shrubs in my woodland garden, underplanted so no soil is visible.
Some additional groundcover plants.

Project 3: Carve Out an Island Bed From Your Lawn

These photos, all taken on the Loop in Chatham, show different configurations of island beds.
Native shrubs for the island bed.

Project 4: Incorporate Native Perennials Into Existing Beds

My own garden, in process of adding more native perennials. There are now 50% natives, and this year I will add another 10%. The goal is 70%, retaining the best of the non-native shrubs and perennials.
A friend’s garden, with natives woven seamlessly into the planting.
Some native perennials that have worked well for me.

Project 5: Create a Mess

What we consider messy is the preferred, even required condition for pollinators, insects, and birds.

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