Habitat for All

HABITAT FOR ALL-The Manada Conservancy Backyard Habitat Program

Every yard, no matter its size, is part of a larger ecosystem. By improving its quality you can enhance the diversity of life that comprises it, and you can reduce the time and costs (both monetary and hidden) that are incurred in maintaining a traditional landscape. You will support the Manada Conservancy, raise awareness of conservation issues, become more educated and aware of your ecosystem, and provide habitat for birds, insects, and other wildlife.

"We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity that belongs to us. When we see the land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect." - Aldo Leopold

Benefits

- Supports increased numbers and diversity of wildlife by providing food and habitat
- Improves air and water quality
- Reduces habitat fragmentation by connecting to other local habitat areas
- Increases your property's monetary value
- Sets an example-allows you to take an active role in conserving biodiversity
- Beautifies your landscape and increases enjoyment of your home
- Reduces time and money spent to maintain your landscape

How to Certify Your Land:

Download the HABITAT FOR ALL brochure here:

Fill it out and mail to us-you will have the option of purchasing a lovely sign to proclaim your participation in HABITAT FOR ALL.

- Reduce or eliminate pesticide/herbicide usage. Choose organic products when possible.

- Reduce the amount of lawn you maintain/mow.

- Include as many different layers in your habitat as possible-canopy trees, understory trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants (grasses and forbs).

- Preserve existing water sources such as marshes or streams or add new sources such as birdbaths or water features.

- Remove any non-native plants where possible (examples: Norway maple, burning bush, Japanese barberry, multiflora rose, purple loosestrife, Oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle).

- Landscape responsibly: never introduce invasive plants to your habitat, consider leaving leaf litter and grass clippings on the ground as organic fertilizer, choose plants whose cultural requirements (soil, moisture, and light requirements) are well-suited to your backyard habitat.

- Provide natural food, such as berries and seeds.

How to accomplish

1. Put the emphasis on "habitat" and not on "backyard"

            a. Put your yard into rehab

"Suburbia is where the developers bulldoze out the trees, then name the streets after them." - Bill Vaughn

Reduce or eliminate your pesticide usage. Ask yourself--what are you trying to kill and why are you trying to kill it? In many cases the bugs or weeds or lichens or moss you're trying to kill are beneficial to the environment. A yard devoid of any evidence of insect damage is also devoid of biodiversity. Ask yourself--what's wrong with evidence of insects? "Bug damage" is a sign that your land is part of a greater ecosystem. Insects provide food to birds and other wildlife. Instead of spending money on chemicals that will destroy the biodiversity, appreciate the evidence of insects you will find on your plants and enjoy the wildlife that will come to your backyard habitat to feed. Most pests have a natural predator, and by landscaping with a diversity of plants (plants of many species) you will keep pests under control by creating a balanced ecosystem. In a balanced ecosystem, no plants should be decimated by an insect. In nature, a diversity of native species (species that have evolved together, creating a balance with each other) ensures that no one species can out-compete the others, becoming a pest. But first you may need to think about enlarging the areas that will become your habitat...

            b. Who needs a lawn

"I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass (and tries to correct the error)." - Sara Stein

The natural state of central Pennsylvania is eastern broadleaf deciduous forest. The climate here is characterized by hot summers, cool winters and precipitation patterns that will always cause the ecosystem, without human intervention, to revert to forest. Yet much of the landscape currently consists of lawn, a monoculture (characterized by many individuals, yet few species). Monocultures contain little diversity and lack the natural controls that keep species in check. Most turf grasses are not native to central Pennsylvania and can't be maintained without their fix of chemicals. Weed and feed is designed to allow the monoculture of lawn to thrive. However, once you break your lawn's chemical dependency, it will be teeming with wildlife and you can feel safe in knowing that your soil is alive and that children and pets can use it without the risks that come with weed killers and other chemicals. And you'll be able to enjoy all of the wildflowers that start growing where once there was only that unnaturally green grass. Best of all, any portion of the lawn that is not needed as lawn can be converted to wildlife habitat...

2. Garden for wildlife

            a. Welcome the natives back to your yard

"Without habitat, there is no wildlife. It is that simple." - Wildlife Habitat Canada

Over thousands of years, our native wildlife have evolved with and adapted to the plants that are native to their ecosystem. In many cases particular species can only survive by eating a certain type of plant. Because of habitat degradation and loss, many native plants have become rare or even extirpated from the lands they once inhabited, while alien invasive species have adapted and spread throughout our ecosystem. By planting only native plants you can be certain you are enriching your slice of land and enhancing the larger web of life.

When choosing your plantings, think about providing a variety of foods, such as fruits and berries, grains and seeds, nuts and acorns, browse plants (which include twigs and buds of shrubs and trees), forage plants (which include grasses and legumes), and aquatic plants. Each wildlife species has its own nutritional needs, which change from one season to another and as an individual animal goes through its life cycle. Flowering plants first provide nectar, then seeds or fruits. In some instances, plants hold their seed or fruit into fall or winter. Some animals, such as insects and other invertebrates, are attracted to flowers, shrubs, and trees, and become food for other wildlife.

Think about how you will provide cover to various forms of wildlife. Cover protects wildlife from the elements, allows them to hide from predators, and to rest or sleep. Trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants provide shelter or cover for wildlife, as do rock piles, brush piles, and cavities in trees. If you are able to leave old dead trees standing, you should, as certain animals have adapted to using dead trees for nesting and rearing their young. You can sometimes let a hedge turn into a hedgerow by ending your annual pruning routine. Often, the routines that gardeners are taught they must follow in order to have the perfectly groomed hedges and flower beds are exactly what excludes wildlife from the garden.

Examples of species native to central Pennsylvania (challenge yourself to include at least one species from each layer in your habitat):

            b. Provide a water source

"There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before." - Robert Lynd

In addition to providing trees and shrubs which serve as nesting sites, protection, and food sources, providing a source of water is critical in your backyard habitat. Water is critical to all forms of life, and many of the water sources that once existed have been drained and paved over or channelized or otherwise degraded. If you have a watery habitat on your property, preserve it. If not, consider how you might provide water, such as creating a pond or using birdbaths as a source of water. Heated birdbaths provide water when most other sources are frozen. Food provides some of the water necessary to wildlife, but a good drink of clean water is always welcome. Birdbaths should be no more than three inches deep, and should have a rough, sloping bottom to provide good footing.

3. Sit back and enjoy

"This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient, more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used." - Henry David Thoreau

Once you've reduced or eliminated the use of chemicals, and provided more habitat consisting of mostly native plants, it's up to you how much time you want to spend maintaining it. Once established and sited correctly, native plants will survive with little outside effort. You may choose to sit back and let your yard do its own thing and be a silent observer, or maintain a more traditional-looking landscape, spending time editing the plants that will naturalize and pruning your trees/shrubs as you like. By eliminating the things that deter wildlife and adding the things that will attract species diversity, you and the ecosystem that you live in will be rewarded with a vibrant yard teeming with life, which will hopefully encourage your neighbors to do the same.

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road/the one less traveled by/offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." - Rachel Carson