Hairstreak on Butterfly Weed, Carole Brown 2010
There are many reasons to plant a nature garden – my friend Carole Brown knows them all.
The following post appeared originally at Carole’s blog Ecosystem Gardening.
It’s easy to assume that you can’t possibly make a difference for wildlife from your small share of the planet. But every positive choice you make in your garden can actually make a huge difference for the wildlife in your area.
And when you help your neighbors make better decisions the benefit to wildlife is magnified. And so it spreads.
Reasons Why Your Garden Matters
#1 The Power of Doing Just One Thing – really, choose just one thing and start making a difference now.
#2 Why Your Garden Matters to Wildlife even When we Have Protected Lands – only 5% of available land in this country is protected, but much of that is being overrun by invasive plants. We’ve simply left wildlife nowhere to go.
#3 Your Ecosystem Garden is Important to Wildlife – habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation due to human action is the number one cause of wildlife declines. You can help reverse this by planning your Ecosystem Garden.
#4 Ecosystem Services: How Your Garden Contributes to a Healthy Environment – Healthy ecosystems contribute many vital services that we tend to take for granted: oxygen production, clean water, soil health, and more. Your Ecosystem Garden can provide some of these services.
#5 Health Care Reform in your Ecosystem Garden – a fun and tongue-in-cheek look at the importance of your garden by borrowing the language of the health care debate.
Children, Nature, and Your Habitat Garden
#6 Awe and Wonder always Welcome in Your Wildlife Garden
#7 The Sense of Wonder in the Wildlife Garden
#8 Helping Your Neighbors Learn to Love your Ecosystem Garden – we mentioned this above in the introduction. Remember that old commercial “They told two friends, and they told two friends……” That’s the way we’ll start making a bigger difference.
#9 Best Reasons NOT to be an Ecosystem Gardener – having some fun by reverse engineering the best reasons for creating your wildlife garden
What are you doing to help wildlife in your garden?
Carole Brown can be found at her blog Ecosystem Gardening, on Twitter at @CB4Wildlife, and on Facebook at Ecosystem Gardening.
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Thanks so much for sharing this article, Alison! I love that there are so many simple things we can do that help wildlife in our gardens.
Carole´s last blog ..Ask Carole
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tara M, Yolanda A. Facio. Yolanda A. Facio said: RT @CB4wildlife: Nine Reasons to #nature #garden. My guest post for @alisonkerr Loving Natures garden http://bit.ly/bHp0de [...]
[...] Alison Kerr used a post of mine to talk about the reasons why our gardens are so important for wildlife at her site, Loving Natures [...]
[...] Alison Kerr used a post of mine to talk about the reasons why our gardens are so important for wildlife at her site, Loving Natures [...]
Carole, you’re a true inspiration. I just love all the wildlife which is finding its way to my garden and you’re very much a part of that. Keep writing!
Alison thank you for introducing me to Carole. I have had so much fun reading her posts. I think I am probably like her aunt. I love my “critters” especially the hedgehogs and frogs. I think what ever you do to encourage nature in your garden you get back several fold.
Thank you for a wonderful post
Marion, I agree, nature just gives so much back. I’m glad you enjoyed visiting with Carole. I too love learning from her. Ah, hedgehogs… love ‘em. Glad to hear you do too