At this time of year, we’d like to stop and say thank you to all the visitors we’ve had, and to those who’ve joined our cause.
While you’re shopping for loved ones in the next week or so, we hope you’ll remember all the great organizations that need your help in this challenging economic climate.
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
—from the song Autumn Leaves
Recently we had a post about how “messy backyards” help wildlife. Since I wrote that post, I came across a wonderful article, “Leaf litter is an Environmental Windfall,” by Master Gardener Vera Strader. She explains why autumn leaves are a boon to wildlife and help enrich the soil.
Leaves provide shelter to insects such as earthworms, pillbugs, millipedes, which provides food for toads, frogs, and other small animals. Birds require protein from insects to feed their young. Leaf litter also fosters living soils with huge numbers of soil bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. Strader writes that, “leaves provide a down-like comforter for small animals.”
This past summer, I saw this process occur in my own backyard. I had to clip back all the grape vines on our building’s fire escape for safety reasons. I didn’t get around to getting rid of the pile of leaves and vines until a month or two later. I went to bag the material to throw it away and found dozens of earthworms under it. So I left the pile for the earthworms. Next spring these earthworms will go in my garden (and I’m sure will be a nice snack for some birds, too).
Strader offers practical tips for dealing with fallen leaves. Here are a few:
As Strader writes, “Leave the leaves to save time and money, enrich soil, help sustain wildlife, and benefit water and air quality. Mother Nature will thank you.”
By the way, we’ve received some great photos of wildlife-friendly backyards. Just click on the gallery on the right of this post for the wildlife backyard gallery. Feel free to send in photos of your backyard and we’ll post them in our gallery.
This week, October 12-18, is World Rainforest Week. Recently, I learned about an organization that has practical solutions to helping the rainforests: the New York-based Rainforest Alliance, which helps to conserve rainforest biodiversity and the livelihoods of people who make their living from the rainforests by transforming land use practices, business practices, and consumer behavior.
So what does this mean for you? You can help the rainforests by being a savvy consumer and by “voting with your dollars” in the kitchen (buying agricultural products from Rainforest Alliance Certified Farms), your living room (buying furniture from Forest Stewardship Council Certified Forests), and by choosing eco-friendly travel options.
Here’s one example: Like most Americans (and people everywhere, for that matter), Susan and I drink A LOT of coffee, but we’re beginning to learn about the devastating toll that modern coffee-growing practices take on the environment.
According to the Rainforest Alliance:
For more than 150 years, coffee was widely grown under the leafy canopy of native rainforest trees. Agronomists in the 1970s began promoting a new farm system where the sheltering forest is cleared, and coffee bushes are packed in dense hedgerows and doused with agrochemicals. These monoculture farms produce more beans, but at a tremendous environmental cost. The traditional, agroforestry system is good wildlife habitat. The new monocultures have little habitat, accelerate soil erosion, and pollute streams.
Certified, forested coffee farms, on the other hand, can be bio-rich buffer zones for parks, protect watersheds, and serve as wildlife corridors. These “coffee forests” are also important sources of firewood, construction materials, medicinal plants, fruits, flowers, honey, and other goods. Many farms in the certification program protect native forest reserves and community water supplies.
This week, consider buying coffee with a Rainforest Alliance Certified seal on it. As reported in the Brisbane (Australia) Times, companies are now “keen to kiss the green frog.”
Won’t it be nice to know when you drink your cuppa Joe in the morning that the coffee was grown on farms “where forests are protected, rivers, soils and wildlife conserved; workers are treated with respect, paid decent wages, properly equipped, and given access to education and medical care,” and from a farm that provides shelter and food for FROGS, birds, and other animals.
I went to the supermarket today and instead of buying my usual brand, I bought a brand called Caribou Coffee, which had the Rainforest Alliance seal. I noticed another brand, too, with the seal. Newman’s Own coffee is Fair-Trade Certified, and certain types of Starbucks coffee are shade-grown (for example, Organic Shade Grown Mexican). It is more expensive, but it still costs less than the price of two lattes at Starbucks. Also, my rainforest-friendly coffee tastes better than my regular brand. I’ll drink to that!
Photographers also take note. The Rainforest Alliance is having a photo contest–the deadline is November 1, 2009. Categories are nature and landscapes, wildlife, conservation in action, and sustainable tourism. The first prize is an eco-trip for two to Costa Rica. Check it out!
Teachers: Here’s the education page with fun stuff for kids and lesson plans for teachers.
Coffee photo courtesy Rainforest Alliance website
Last week we did a post about turning your yard into a wildlife habitat. Because we received so many interesting comments, we thought we’d invite people to send in photos of their backyards. As we did for the photo contest, we’ll create a gallery of the backyard photos (see the photo contest gallery for example). Please send a jpeg (2 mb max).
We would also love to receive any tips you may have for creating a frog- or wildlife-friendly backyard. We’ll incorporate your tips (along with your name or whatever information you’d like to provide) into future posts.
As the weather gets colder, here’s a little armchair reading to get you dreaming about next year’s garden, or perhaps to get some ideas for last-minute fall planting. This book, Bringing Nature Home: Using Native Plants to Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens by Douglas Tallamy, was suggested by a commenter, Miriam Goldberger:
You might also want to check out Miriam’s site, Wildflower Farms. She offers native North American perennial wildflowers, native grasses, and wildflower seeds.
And for inspiration, I leave you with a lovely video by another commenter, Ernie McLaney. His backyard is a wildlife habitat certified by the National Wildlife Federation, and he’s been involved in certifying all six campus locations of Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, NC. As he says, “It’s a great project to help increase awareness of the natural world around us.”
While watching the video, I noticed lots of birdbaths. Providing water for birds is one simple thing that everyone can do.
Looking forward to seeing your backyards!
It’s that time of year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) when we’re raking up leaves, cleaning up our backyards, and preparing for winter. But as we prepare for the first frost, we’re spending more time inside than outside and our backyards may be a bit of a mess.
I read an interesting article in The Independent (UK) the other day, “Why Untidy Gardens Make the Best Habitat for Wildlife.” My in-laws live in England and “garden” more or less means the same as “backyard” to Americans, though most English yards have a flower border. British readers, please correct me if I’m wrong!
Anyway, the article points out that town and city gardens provide a vital refuge for birds, insects, and other animals, including amphibians. Small gardens are as good as large gardens, urban gardens as important as suburban ones, and non-native plants are not always harmful to birds and insects.
Both city and suburban backyards can provide what Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson called “bridges” between protected areas, providing refuges for wildlife. These bridges serve as a vital corridor, for example, for amphibians, migrating songbirds, and other animals.*
My backyard falls into the category of “untidy.” I have a lax attitude as to what I allow to grow in it, including a Norway maple, which no one in my family likes. They claim it’s taking over the tiny backyard, which is true. Yet the tree also draws lots of birds. I have vines growing up walls that provide places for birds to hide in, and I have two birdbaths. I don’t use pesticides or herbicides.
What I’ve noticed is that this time of year I get lots of animal visitors. I have a robin couple living in the yard (not common the rest of the year). An amazing bird that I can’t even find in the bird book stopped by the other day. Birds come this time of year to eat the grapes on my grape vine, swooping down almost the same week each year.
You don’t have to do much to make your backyard a wildlife habitat. Just don’t be too neat—don’t hurry to clear up everything when the garden stops flowering. Some of this “debris” is important for wildlife to hide in or to eat.
Of course, I realize that some animals are pests and steps have to be taken to keep them out. When we’re in New Hampshire, we need to use special bear-resistant garbage cans. Some parts of the country have real problems with deer.
But I think we should try to give a helping hand to those animals and insects that need these wildlife bridges–amphibians, birds, honey bees, and so on.
Here are some more tips for fall planting from the Independent article:
See also the National Wildlife Foundation‘s site about attracting wildlife and getting your yard recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.
This time of year we gardeners get a bit depressed as winter approaches. What are we going to do with ourselves until the first seed catalogs arrive in the mail in late winter? This fall I am looking at ways I can make my backyard more amenable to wildlife. I just received my Gardeners Supply catalog that has all kinds of birdbaths, birdfeeders, birdhouses, and other products to create an animal-friendly garden/yard.
Please add your suggestions for ways to attract backyard wildlife.
Creating a frog pond, courtesy of Loudoun (VA) Wildlife Conservatory*I got this from Earthtalk: Expert Answers to Everyday Questions about the Environment (Plume, 2009), an excellent book, by the way.
Maybe it’s because I grew up on suburban Long Island, but I do have a fondness for golf courses. These open spaces, with their green rolling hills, seemed like “nature” to me when I was a kid.
But golf courses are far from natural and they take their toll on the environment. Golf courses require thousands of gallons of water a day to keep them green. Large quantities of pesticides and fertilizers are used on them, which pollutes local water sources, and harms wildlife. When golf courses are created, animals often lose their natural habitats.
According to an article in the Oregon Environmental News, however, some golf courses are going green. The golf courses’ water hazard, for example, may double as homes for frogs, turtles, and other wildlife. Hardier grass varieties are planted that don’t require as much water, fertilizer, and pesticides. Dead trees are left standing to attract insects, which attracts birds. Water is periodically tested for chemicals, which helps frogs, and other animals. Wildlife corridors allow larger animals to pass through undisturbed.
This is great news for animals and for the environment. I hope this new green (and no, I don’t mean that kind of green) mentality continues to spread among golf course managers and members of golf clubs. If you’re an avid golfer, please show your support for Frog-Friendly (and Bird-Friendly) green courses.
Here’s more information from Audubon International about the Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses, a certification program that helps golf courses protect the environment and also preserve the natural heritage of the game of golf. It also includes a list of green golf courses.
The 13th green at Puakea Golf Course, Kaua'i, Hawaii Photo Courtesy of Puakea Golf Course
