PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE GARDENING PRACTICES

The new Nibbled Leaf symbol featured in our 2022 Open Days Directory

While The Garden Conservancy has long been an advocate for sustainable gardening practices, in 2022 we took further steps to publicize our position, and to encourage our national community to do the same The Conservancy partnered with renowned landscape designer and advocate for environmentally friendly gardening practices Edwina von Gal to help update our messaging in the Open Days Directory Edwina is the founder of the Perfect Earth Project, which promotes toxin-free landscapes for the health of people, their pets, and the planet She is also the founder of the 2/3 for the Birds initiative, which encourages gardeners to plant 2/3 native plants to help support diminishing bird populations

Working with Edwina, in 2022 The Garden Conservancy launched the Nibbled Leaf initiative, creating a way for Open Days gardens to self-identify as following sustainable gardening practices.

The leaf is nibbled to reflect that the plants in our gardens are not just decorative objects but serve as part of a greater ecosystem. As Edwina wrote in the directory, “There are no rules or requirements, but a commitment you make to yourself, your place, and the life it supports ” More than one-third of all 2022 Open Days garden hosts identified themselves as “Nibblers” in this inaugural year

We are now working with both Edwina and Page Dickey celebrated garden author and Open Days co-founder to introduce more defined parameters for this initiative, likely to be announced for the 2023 season, including Nibbled Leaf Commitments The Garden Conservancy recently held an endof-season virtual “town hall” meeting with hosts and Open Days families to solicit feedback and develop ideas for the future of the Nibbled Leaf initiative, and nearly 600 people registered

The initiative is on track to become one of the most important avenues for raising awareness and recruiting gardeners to organic methods in the United States

“This is nature-based habitat gardening: choosing plants that aren’t reliant on fertilizers, pesticides, or irrigation; plants that attract wildlife. It is using practices that respect the life cycles of insects and birds, and adding a clean water source to replace the puddles, ponds and streams lost to development. It is leaving dead wood for insects and cavity nesting birds. It is letting plants grow to their natural shapes. It is working with nature, not against it.”

- Edwina von Gal, explaining the new initiative in the 2022 Open Days Directory