Cooperative Living April 2022 - 21

MEADOW ADVENTURE
Plants form the foundation of a
wildlife-friendly garden, especially
when a diverse selection of densely
spaced native plants are used.
PROPER LANDSCAPING
So what exactly is a wildlife-friendly
landscape? According to Tallamy, it's
a landscape that contributes four
components to the local ecosystem:
It supports a diverse population of
pollinators, supports the greater food
web, sequesters carbon and protects
and manages watersheds.
Many of these functions, says
Mizejewski, can be accomplished by
providing wildlife with four basic
needs: food, cover, places to raise
young and water.
" All wildlife, whether they're in the
wilderness or in our gardens, need these
things, " Mizejewski says. As they create a
food web, they also create an ecosystem
that supports all life in the area.
Th primary foundation of any
ecosystem is the very thing that makes
a garden a garden - plants. Native
plants can provide three of the four
basic circle-of-life needs - food, shelter
and nesting/birthing sites. Just add
water and you have a wildlife-friendly
habitat.
Tallamy noted that even folks living
Small Changes, Big Impacts
When it comes to gardening for nature, big changes come in
small packages and work best when approached with baby steps.
That's the message that ecologist Michelle Bertelsen,
naturalist David Mizejewski and entomologist/conservationist
Doug Tallamy all try to emphasize whenever they share
their passion for nature-friendly gardening.
" Developing a wildlife-friendly landscape only
becomes scary and undoable if you think you have to
do it all by tomorrow, " Tallamy says.
Instead, he suggests approaching it with an eye
toward one or two of the four components of a healthy
ecosystem (supporting pollinators, supporting the food web,
sequestering carbon and managing the watershed).
" Look at your property and ask yourself, 'Which one of these
can I do better?' Almost everyone can do at least one of those
better, " he says.
co-opliving.com
in high-rise apartments and concrete
jungles without access to so much as a
postage-stamp sized patch of land can
help by donating to, or volunteering
with, conservation groups, public
gardens and national, state or local
parks.
City dwellers can also grow native
plants on balconies, roft ops, vacant
lots and any open strip of land or help
establish wildlife-friendly beds or entire
gardens at local schools, community
centers or assisted living facilities. 
Katie Jackson is a freelance journalist
and book author with more than four
decades of experience, including as gardening
columnist for Alabama Living.
A goldfinch feasts on the
seeds of a purple cornflower.
All three experts encourage the idea of starting in a small and
specific area of the yard or garden, rather than trying to makeover
the entire yard. This saves time, money and allows gardeners to
learn as they go.
They agree that the basis of any nature-minded
landscape is the use of native plants, which are suited
specifically to local environments.
Once established, native plants can also help lower
maintenance demands in the landscape. " There's no
garden in the world that is 'no maintenance,' " says
Bertelsen, " but you shouldn't have to water and fertilize
native plants as much as you do nonnative species. "
It's also important to plant natives densely and diversly. Filling
a space with lots of compatible but different plant species is ideal.
" The more plants you have and the bigger the grouping of them the
more likely you're going to support wildlife, " Mizejewski says. 
April 2022 ●
Cooperative Living ●
19
PHOTO COURTESY KATHY DIAMONTOPOULOS, AMERICAN MEADOWS
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living April 2022

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