Habitat in the community beyond our yards

Our yard provides a lot of habitat for many creatures, but without habitat in the community beyond our yard, it’s only a small oasis — an important oasis, but not enough to preserve life on the planet.

To preserve biodiversity and leave our children and grandchildren the legacy of a living planet, we need to provide habitat in the community beyond our yard.

And these fragments need to be connected!

Patterns of land use

The neighborhood beyond our yard

Though it’s too late for our neighborhood (which was developed in the 30s, 40s, and 50s), I can see the advantages of splitting land up differently, such as Ithaca Ecovillage did. They clustered the houses together instead of chopping the land up equally among the houses, so on the same amount of land they have much larger areas for growing food as well as for meadows and woodlands — something everyone in the whole village can enjoy.

No-mow areas

Sign at a local community college

Our local community college is situated on a hillside near some natural areas, so why create vast maintenance-intensive lawns? The solution is to have meadows, but mow a curving strip near the road, so it shows that this is an intentional landscape. Signage helps, too.

Pollinator-friendly landscapes in the community

Pollinator conservation is an important issue, and because these creatures are so small and can benefit from small-scale efforts, it’s a particularly appropriate for community projects.

Cities and suburbs can provide habitat connectivity, an extremely important role for communities.

Bumble bee and joe-pye
Pollinator Pathway sign

One attempt to create this connectivity is the Pollinator Pathways project. I added my hellstrip to the Pathway, but sadly, it doesn’t yet connect to anything else.

Educating the public about the importance of bees is important since many people still view bees as a problem rather than as the valuable (and enjoyable!) resource they are.

Merely decorative seasonal plantings

Spring decoration
Spring decoration ©Janet Allen
Fall decoration
Fall decoration ©Janet Allen

I happened to notice this planting downtown one year. In the spring and summer, it was red and white — non-native — begonias. In the fall, it was red and white — non-native — mums. While I was taking this fall photo, I noticed a monarch flying through this parking lot that was full of flowers, but which offered nothing for it to eat.

Besides the fact that these planting provide absolutely nothing for any insects, another big problem is that these merely-decorative seasonal plantings cause repeated soil disruption and thus CO2 emissions.

Resources

Reflections

Municipalities, communities, and commercial properties can save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by redesigning their managed properties to include mostly native, more permanent plantings and by rewriting their maintenance contracts to eliminate seasonal plantings.
~ Sue Reed, Climate-wise Landscaping, p. 139

Les Milbrath was fond of reminding me that “nature bats last.” What Les meant by this was that we live in a finite world and humanity will eventually be forced to adopt sustainable practices. While we have no choice regarding whether we eventually adopt these practices, the speed with which they are adopted will determine the grace with which we make this transition.
~ Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Community Based Social Marketing

Many HOAs are still attached to the anachronistic symbol of suburbia: lush lawns that, combined with commercial uses of turfgrass, collectively suck up more water than any other irrigated crop in the country.
~ Nancy Lawson, The Humane Gardener