Backyard Basics

What conservationists and citizens can do to improve life for plants and animals right in their own backyard. Since this is a reconciliation ecology blog and we have been discussing how to attract animals to, I think it is interesting to discuss what we can do improve living conditions for plants and animals that share our environment. In my experience, if we make living conditions better for other animals as well as plants that might live right in our own backyards, we also make living conditions better for ourselves.

A fellow ecologist once exclaimed, "Tell me what I should do in my backyard!" What he meant was, what are things that citizens can do to make improvements in their immediate surroundsings? Below are a few small steps that can make a big difference in your backyard and beyond, as well as connect you to your surroundings:

• Find out what type of soils underlay your dwelling (try: http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/ if you don't know your soils);
• Plant native plant species adapted to your local soils and climate;
• Keep an animal list for your area and update it regularly, especially when you do some improvements like planting native plants

I hope to update this post with others like it in the near future.