a little good news: your garden can help

[mellowtigger]

I've written before about Minnesota's #LawnsToLegumes program and my participation in it. I've shown video of pollinators enjoying flowers and photo evidence that a bird searched for seeds in my own yard, formerly just lawn grass. Now there's talk that urban farming, from backyard gardens to larger food production plots, within a city's borders can benefit ecosystem diversity and health:

In a recent paper in the journal Ecology Letters, Jha and her colleagues showed that urban gardens can actually boost biodiversity—particularly if residents prioritize planting native species, which attract native insects like bees. “The gardener actually has a lot of power in this scenario,” says Jha. “It doesn't matter how large or small the garden is. It's the practice of cultivating the landscape—and the decisions they make about the vegetation and the ground cover—that ultimately decide the plant and animal biodiversity there.”

I'll go one step farther and claim (without evidence) that even apartment balcony plants can help extend the biological network. What I wish for is a map for each city that plots tree and shrub locations for fruits and nuts, with a typical radius for each that would benefit pollinators traveling from one source to the next. Maybe add information about typical flowering season for each tree. This map would aid city planners in what to include in hyperlocal (within a few blocks) mini-parks to encourage homeowners to also plant these trees to extend the network of food resources for both humans and pollinators. Trees often come in male-versus-female versions, and having other trees in their vicinity would simplify decisions for homeowners. They could plant just a single tree and still know that they are participating in the network. People could look at the map and see if they're helping to connect two city parks in a network of pollen and food. Bonus: Enlist schoolchildren in their science lessons to update their local maps, helping them to identify plants and learn the interconnected nature of their community.

This information fits nicely with The Nature Conservancy's climate migration map (here's the animated version) and their efforts to build contiguous channels of native habitat to ease these migrations. It's important that species have sufficient resources "within reach". So...

... your garden matters. Keep up the good work.