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What can you do?

Are you interested in taking the next step? Would you like to move toward the goal of half-yard, half-school, half-town, half-valley, half-watershed, half-state?

The following actions are a great place to start:

• Plant natives and remove non-native invasives

  • Invasive plants can out-compete natives and decrease local biodiversity

• Reduce and re-wild your lawn

  • Minimize fertilizer use and stop using pesticides

• Provide structural diversity and mimic old growth forests

  • Create different layers of habitat with large trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants

  • Leave the leaves and dead wood, which many species rely on

  • Make a brush pile or rock pile

• Consider and plant for habitat connectivity

  • Connect natural areas on your property to natural areas on your neighbors’ properties, ensuring larger networks of habitats and supporting more species

• Re-vegetate wet areas with wetland species

• Maintain or restore a buffer of native vegetation along streams, rivers, and lakes

With a little creativity and knowledge, we can make yards that are both aesthetically pleasing and rich in biodiversity, which will also help stewardship catch on with others.

• Carefully mow paths between points of use or interest.

  • A sign that says ‘Bird Habitat’ or ‘Half for Nature’ can go a long way.

• Use all the conventional landscaping techniques, like edging, designed plantings, and mulching.

• Use the Garden Plant Finder! tool to find native ferns, flowers, shrubs, and trees of different colors and sizes.

Do you want to learn more?

Check out our Biodiversity Enhancement Strategies for Landowners page and A Vermonter's Guide for Protecting Biodiversity. This booklet was designed by Eric Hagen to give Vermonters clear instructions for directly restoring, enhancing, and protecting biodiversity in the areas that we have the most influence over: our homes, our towns, and our state. Please use this booklet as a reference or share it with your community.