Rewilding Your Yard: Practical First Steps

"There is no beauty but in relationships. Nothing cut off by itself is beautiful. Never can things in destructive relationships be beautiful. all beauty is in the creative purpose of our relationships; all ugliness is in the destructive aims of the destroyers arrangements.(1)"

At the heart, rewilding is a lazy landscaping strategy. Leave the land alone to grow its own plants. If you'd like a bit more direction than just "go sit on your porch and drink tea," however, there are a few easy steps you can take to increase the ecological health of your landscape.

When I moved into my house, I inherited a conventional lawn and landscape. Deciding that I wanted to do something different was easy, but figuring out exactly what I should do took a little more work. The first step to rewilding landscaping is, of course, listening to and learning about the landscape. Local university extension services and the EPA's ecoregions map are great sources of knowledge.(2) My region is in the eastern temperate forest, more specifically the southern Michigan drift plains. The description for this ecoregion tells me that some of the dominant plant species include white oak, bitternut hickory, sugar maple, and beech.(3) That's a great start to understanding what my landscape should look like, and it becomes a complete picture when I visit my local nature center.

Parks and preserves are a lovely place to get something of a feel for what the precolonial landscape was like and enjoy a nice hike at the same time. There are lots of local guides to help you identify the key plant and animal species around you, including those published by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on its excellent website.(4) The Xerxes Society for Invertebrate Conservation has helpful guides for identifying which native plants in your area are most helpful for pollinator conservation.(5)

If you are transitioning away from traditional landscaping, one of the first things that needs to be done is the safe disposal of lawn chemicals, fuel, and equipment. Research hazardous waste disposal programs and community recycling centers in your area that take pesticides and fertilizers. The EPA publishes a helpful guide to starting this process.(6) Consider recycling or selling lawn equipment, and dispose of gas and oil properly. Most exotic ornamental plants can be composted as they reach the end of their natural life spans, but make sure to remove any seed pods you see. Viable seeds (seeds from varieties that aren't labeled sterile) of exotic ornamentals should be burned or put in the trash.

It's not necessary to go out and dig up all your exotic garden plants. Many ornamental species are sterile or do not quickly spread to invade native ecosystems, and can be replaced when they reach the end of their lifespan. But there are certain species that pose greater threats to the land. Recognizing invasive species is an important way to safeguard local ecosystems. University extension services and the EPA are, again, a great resource for information.(7) Take care to remove as much of the plant as possible, especially including any seeds. Unfortunately, anything that can propagate new invasive plants should be burned or sent to the landfill rather than composted. I'm always pulling Callery pear seedlings out of my garden - and in the trash they go.

For every unpleasant surprise of a Callery pear, there are many delightful surprises. Now that I mostly ignore my tiny urban garden, I've enjoyed dozens of new goldenrod, Virginia creeper, staghorn sumac, and aster seedlings. Popping up through several years worth of fallen leaves, twigs, and utility company trimmings, I am constantly greeted by these new surprises. It reminds me of the verse in Matthew, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.(8)" Gardening doesn't have to be laborious, it can be full of happy accidents and unpredictable wonders.

The modern environmental movement encourages using consumer choice as a tool for combating climate change and other environmental catastrophes. Many of my neighbors have chosen to install landscapes that reduce or eliminate lawn by replacing it with exotic ornamental shrubs and flowers. While this addresses some concerns related to petrochemical inputs and water runoff, it is an expensive and labor-intensive option that fails to question the underlying assumptions of a legally enforced, capital intensive landscaping ethos. It makes gardening too time consuming, expensive, and difficult for most people to engage in. A hands-off approach is more accessible to those without the resources or ability to design a formal garden.

The reason we can be so hands-off in the garden is simple. Plants and animals know how to reproduce themselves. So why would we purchase a tree to plant in our yards when the trees themselves can do it more easily, for free? Self-sown plants are often treated as weeds, but we should instead respect the ability and creativity of their parents. At the very least, we can appreciate that allowing plants to sow their own seeds saves us the trouble of doing it for them.

This technique can work even in really difficult situations. Hell strip is the name for the salty, hot, dry patch in urban and suburban lawns between the sidewalk and the road. My own garden has one of these hell strips with a sycamore tree planted in the middle. It's been lovely to see my little self-seeded asters flourish while I sit back and watch my neighbors mow their lawns.

Another great way to speed up the process of habitat restoration is to propagate native plants by saving seed and taking cuttings. Responsibly harvesting seeds can bring interesting new native plants to areas where they might have been eradicated. And where native plants go, native insects and birds will follow. The United States Forest Service (9) and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center both have great resources for anyone interested in learning more about collecting seed from their own native plant communities.(10) For common plant species, a great way to propagate seed is just to scatter seed heads around your garden. This summer I found a juneberry tree in a local park and gathered a small plastic bag full of ripe fruit. I don't yet know if any of the seeds I dumped in the back yard will sprout, but it took me all of five minutes of effort. And some of the berries made a delicious snack while I was picking them.

Starting a compost pile is a simple way to reduce your trash output, make your own garden fertilizer, and enrich the soil. Compost bins can be as simple as four stakes surrounded by chicken wire, like my extremely low maintenance set-up. I throw my kitchen scraps and garden waste in the bin, layered with dry leaves and straw to absorb moisture. Because I don't manage my compost pile to reach the high temperatures that kill weed seeds, the compost I produce goes to my ornamental plantings rather than my vegetable garden. But the tradeoff is that I don't have to spend any time thinking about the compost, which suits me fine. There are, of course, more detailed plans for better compost bins, and better recipes for lovely, weed-free compost. Vermicomposting can be a great, odor-free alternative for apartment dwellers. The Rodale Institute for organic agriculture research has both a book and webinar on the subject that are very accessible and informative.(11)

Rather than just working alone on our own yards and in our own homes, the most important work we can do to change the ecology of our communities is educating others. Forming community around the work of healing the landscape will be crucial if we want to challenge established landscaping norms. Seed collecting or bird watching with friends are great ways to strengthen our human relationships as we strengthen our relationships to the land. The Wild Ones organization has chapters across the United States that connect gardeners and naturalists who are interested in native plants.(12)

1. Ayi Kwei Armah, "Two Thousand Seasons," (San Francisco: Per Ankh Publishers, 2000) 317.
2. NatureServe, "Terrestrial Ecological Systems of the United States: Classification Concepts and Maps for Ecosystem Assessment, Planning, Management, and Monitoring," Accessed September 8, 2020, https://www.natureserve.org/conservation-tools/terrestrial-ecological-systems-united-states.
3. United States Environmental Protection Agency, "Ecoregions," Accessed September 8, 2020, https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions.
4. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, "Plant Lists & Collections," Accessed September 8, 2020, https://www.wildflower.org/collections. [recommended species by state]
5. Xerxes society for Invertebrate Conservation, "Publications," Accessed September 9, 2020, https://xerces.org/publications.
6. United States Environmental Protection Agency, "Safe Disposal of Pesticides," Accessed September 9, 2020, https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/safe-disposal-pesticides.
7. United States Department of Agriculture National Invasive Species Information Center, "Invasive Species Resources," Accessed September 8, 2020, https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/resources.
8. Matthew 6:29-30 NRSV
9. United States Forest Service, "Collecting Native Seed," Accessed September 8, 2020, https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions.
10. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Staff, "How to Collect and Store Seeds," Accessed September 8, 2020, https://www.wildflower.org/learn/collect-store-seeds.
11. Grace Gershuny (editor) and Deborah L. Martin (editor), "The Rodale Book of Composting, Newly Revised and Updated: Simple Methods to Improve Your Soil, Recycle Waste, Grow Healthier Plants, and Create an Earth-Friendly Garden (Rodale Classics)," (New York: Rodale Books, 2018).
12. Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes, accessed September 9, 2020, https://wildones.org/