COAST SALISH PLANTS & NURSERY
From left: Oregon Grape, Western Columbine, and Pacific Silverweed. Photos by Maddie Edmonds
Walk in a Wild Yard
Read on for a taste of how ecological gardening can provide you with pleasure, while being environmentally friendly and improving wildlife habitat. By connecting yards and greenspace, we can create landscapes that support a diversity of life, including ourselves. BY MADELINE EDMONDS
A
weekend morning - you step outside into your garden, a hot cup of tea cradled in your hand. You glance down: something has chewed a few holes in the newest leaves at the tip of your Snowberry bush. You peer closer to see if you can find the culprit - but there’s nothing there. Perhaps the chickadee chipping at you from the cover of the cedar has already snatched it up to fuel its morning forays. You plant a wide range of native species that host native insects. Earlier in the season, these disappeared into the gaping mouths of a clutch of chicks, now fledged. The chickadee’s chip notes express only mild alarm - it wants to come down to the bird bath - but you’re a bit too close. Your feet crunch in leaves that you’ve let accumulate, not just for the pleasure of their rustle underfoot, but also to enrich your soil and provide shelter for creatures overwinter. You pause to watch a bumblebee hum between the purple petals of your late-blooming Douglas Aster, brushing
28
WINGSPAN FALL/WINTER 2019
pollen onto its legs and belly. The bee is still a little sluggish, moving slowly in the morning chill. You take a sip of your own drink - harvested from a blend of native herbs from your garden - as you watch the bee sip its fill of nectar. The asters are just the latest performers in a sequence of blooms. You and the pollinators have a steady supply from early spring through late fall. You may not have the largest space, but you’ve filled it with lush layers of green, from creeping groundcovers and wildflowers to shrubs and trees. You slowly replace chunks of lawn as you find the time. Instead, you’ve planted a diversity of plants adapted to your local conditions, many edible or medicinal. Once they’re established, you barely have to water. Pest populations are kept in check by birds and predatory insects. Things stay balanced. And even more gratifying - after chatting with your neighbour about your plans, they’ve started their own garden to attract hummingbirds.
They happily accepted a handful of your seedlings to get started. Others without yards can grow a few plants on a balcony or window, find a plot in a community garden, or encourage their local governments and developers to shift their landscaping practices. As wildlife populations face building pressures from habitat loss and a changing climate, making these shifts in our backyards and beyond provide connectivity, and living space for local birds and wildlife. This includes your thirsty chickadee, which has been joined by a companion, egging it on. Dee-dee-dee-dee. It grows bold and comes down to sip from the bird bath as you watch. You leave it to its day, and return to yours, feeling refreshed and hopeful. Maddie Edmonds volunteers as a manager of the Coast Salish Plant Nursery. She wants to share her passion for native plants and empower people to improve their local habitats. She worked for Wild Bird Trust over the summer as Communications Assistant and is completing her Master’s in Ecological Restoration at SFU/BCIT.
