Gardening: Using our landscapes as a bridge to the natural world
The research supporting the importance of home gardens that incorporate elements of biodiversity and sustainability is growing rapidly.
More studies show that planting your garden to support native plants, insects and animals has a multiplier effect on the habitat beyond your garden. When native habitat-friendly gardens can cluster together, a whole neighborhood becomes a haven where nature can thrive.
This year, in support of the statewide theme of incorporating nature into gardens and as part of its annual Cabin Fever Symposium, the Spokane County Master Gardeners Foundation is hosting Doug Tallamy, a leading advocate for incorporating nature into our gardens, for a live Zoom webinar at 1 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are available through the foundation’s website at: spokane.mastergardenerfoundation.org/cabin-fever-2025/. You can either join the crowd at the Spokane County Extension Office or online at home. Tickets are $12 to attend and $10 for online.
Tallamy, an entomologist based at the University of Delaware, is a leading proponent of creating gardens that weave together the surrounding natural native habitat into our backyard gardens to form a seamless link between the natural and built environment.
“We are at a critical point of losing so many species from local ecosystems that their ability to produce the oxygen, clean water, flood control, pollination, pest control, (and) carbon storage, that is, the ecosystem services that sustain us, will become seriously compromised,” Tallamy said.
Tallamy has authored several ground-breaking books, including “Bringing Nature Home” (2009), “Nature’s Best Hope” (2020) and his most recent , “Nature’s Action Plan” (2024) that “features 15 urgently needed actions to create healthy, functioning ecosystems where you live, work, and play. Each action includes an action checklist, step-by-step instructions, recommended resources, and informative tips.”
Tallamy also developed the concept of the home-grown national park that calls for us to treat native habitat and our gardens as a single entity.
Tallamy encourages gardeners to look at their landscapes through the lenses of four critical ecological functions they must perform to achieve a sustainable relationship with the natural world. Continuing to plant landscapes that do not sustain or enhance natural habitats around us is not sustainable and never was, he says.
“It’s really very simple; our landscapes must do the things that enable ecosystems to produce the life support we and every other species requires,” he said.
Here are the four concepts:
•The first says a landscape must support a diverse community of pollinators throughout the growing season. That means plants that attract pollinators from early spring into October.
•The second is that landscapes must provide energy for the local food web. That means having enough plant diversity to support animal life with high-quality food sources.
•Third, landscapes must be connected to the watershed they are in to protect soil and water resources.
•Last, landscapes must sequester carbon to prevent its release into the atmosphere. Plant tissue, alive and dead, sequesters carbon that through decay returns it to the soil.