I recently took part in a show us your sustainability contest at my work. It was interesting to see what sustainability means to different people. To some it means strictly adding solar panels to their home and driving electric cars (which actually isn’t very sustainable when you learn more about this technology), to others it was converting their yards to a xeriscape and the most extreme of those removing all vegetation from a back yard and replacing it completely with gravel.
Myself, sustainability means taking care of not only myself but my environment as well. Instead of getting rid of all of our vegetation, I instead have planted more plants effectively turning my property into a sanctuary space for not only plants but wildlife as well. While at the same time growing food and medicine for my family. The space not only provides food and medicine for us it does the same for wildlife as well. Our property is a bustling way station for countless birds, two chatty squirrels and unfortunately a few rats and mice as well. Not to mention countless insect species.
After seeing the xeriscaped yards in the contest, a thought occurred to me, what are the pollinators to do? I realized with all of those turning to minimalist landscaping, not only are they doing away with plants, they are also doing away with the insects. While some will jump for joy at that thought, there are so many insects we depend on. The primary one being bees. Already in decline, by doing away with vegetation we are doing away with their food source. However, there is much more to it than just their food source, it’s ours as well. Bees as we know are imperative to pollinating our food supply. To put that into perspective according to the United Nations Environment Programme 71 out of 100 most common food crops are pollinated by bees.
Even though honey bees get all of the attention, a sizable amount of crops are pollinated by native bees as well as other insects including flies (yep, that’s right), wasps and thrips. According to Pollinator.org there are 115 different types of bees that pollinate blueberries, that’s incredible!
The most surprising pollinator of all is…….the mosquito. Yes you read that correctly the bane of an enjoyable summer evening, the mosquito. It turns out their primary food source is not us but flower nectar. Females only become vampire like when they are laying eggs and need the protein boost.
An article was published earlier this summer on the Michigan State University’s newspaper site Spartan News Room extolling the benefits of a backyard habitat no matter the size. They pointed out that it provides a food source and a safe place to nest for wildlife as well as providing benefits to people as well due to the positive feelings associated with added greenery and the presence of wildlife. I can certainly speak from experience when I’ve had a particularly stressful day, going out to the garden to just sit among the plants helps to erase the stress. Especially watching the birds flitting in and out of the trees and bushes. Or landing on a particular plant to eat the seeds from it, some underestimating their weight and bending the plants almost all the way over. Watching and listening to the bees buzz from flower to flower covered in pollen. I think one of the key references in that article though was the quote from the National Wildlife Federation stating that “one million acres of wildlife habitat are lost every year due to suburban development across the country”.
Besides insects losing their homes, mammals also lose their habitat. I think of my own yard, we have a lot of mature trees and bushes. Every year we have numerous birds taking up residence in those trees and bushes to build their nests. We’ve watched many little families of birds over the years. Cheered on the little babies when they take their first flight. The most fun was watching a quail make her nest in my sweetgrass patch in one of our grow boxes. The male perched on our fence post to keep watch. She was wary at first when we would go out to water but she soon learned we were not going to disturb her and she sat on her nest while we watered everything around her. We later found an empty nest with all of the eggs hatched. The following year either the same family or a new one took up residence under our lavender bushes. I found that out when I went out to cut lavender and a flock of babies and the mama came scurrying out from under.
It is either the same family again or maybe a new family has graced our yard this year. I was surprised when I bent down to pick up a bag of soil prep and my hand went into the purslane the bag was partly laying on, and to my surprise there were two quail babies in the purslane. I immediately gathered up my phone and mug and retreated to my front porch to allow the little family to move on. Shortly after I left, out came the mom and dad calling to their children who immerged from the purslane and other plants around and made their way to get under the pumpkin vines and corn stalks.
Over the years more and more of our neighbors have done away with their bushes or low growing trees which is diminishing more and more nesting sites for birds like the quail.
I understand the main reason for xeriscaping is to save water especially in states like mine where we seem to be in a perpetual drought. There are however amazing native drought tolerant plant species that produce flowers and seeds that can still benefit wildlife and insects. Besides planting drought tolerant plants ensuring there is no exposed soil, that it is covered with mulch or groundcover can also help conserve the water in the soil and keep it moist.
I think in this time of ever expanding urban sprawl where more and more native habitats are being encroached upon on or completely lost it is very important to provide this little islands of oasis and protection for those we share this planet with.
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