45 percent of all insects worldwide over the past 40 years 1. This in turn greatly impacts the wildlife that rely on them for survival including birds and many mammals.
All of this is made worse by an outdated culture of home landscaping that values pristine and perfect lawns over naturalized gardens.
Is there a role that home gardeners can play in reversing this alarming trend? Absolutely! Approximately 60 percent of land in the United States is privately owned and that number jumps to 93 percent of the land in Maryland 2. This means that the greatest opportunity to protect our local environment is in our very own backyards. But this requires us to garden with a different mindset and approach, one that isn’ t solely focused on aesthetics but also considers the environmental benefits that our landscapes provide.
Here at Brookside Gardens and Montgomery Parks, we’ re leading by example, actively implementing a philosophy of sustainability that offers lessons for both the home gardener and professional. An effective way to approach a redesign of your landscape is by asking three simple questions.
The first question: Which areas of your property help or harm the natural environment?
When our horticulturists applied this question to the various landscapes at Brookside Gardens, one area immediately stood out as needing improvement: the Rose Garden. The Rose Garden is one of the most beloved areas, attracting visitors with its abundance of vibrant blooms and intoxicating fragrances. However, roses are one of
The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.
~ michael pollan
the most high-maintenance plants insects and birds while requiring less water, fertilizer, chemical and they struggle in Maryland’ s hot and humid summers. They sprays and overall maintenance. attract numerous diseases and The new plantings extend the insect pests, requiring a tremendous amount of pesticides to keep November, offering visitors a
bloom time from May through
them healthy and blooming. These longer display to enjoy. chemicals can poison the soil
Change is difficult. Identifying areas of our garden that can be while also harming other insects and wildlife. better used to support the environment requires a critical eye.
The Rose Garden was a clear example of a landscape that
Making the hard choice to redesign could be reimagined with a more an area requires overcoming our sustainable design. This choice emotional attachments to traditional definitions of beauty. required a significant commitment of time and money, as it called for This brings us to the second hundreds of roses to be removed question: Are the plants used in the that for over 50 years were a landscape supporting biodiversity? garden highlight for visitors. In
This is a good time to take 2024, an entirely new design was inventory of your existing plants installed that incorporated a more and measure the benefits they diverse perennial plant palette. The provide to pollinators and wildlife. Start off by pinpointing when garden now incorporates native plants that support more beneficial each type of plant blooms or when
6 plenty I spring sowing 2025