Your Own Certified Garden Habitat

your own certified Backyard

Habitat

by Margaret DeStefano

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) sponsors a program that helps anyone to turn their yard, balcony garden, office landscape, or schoolyard into a certified wildlife habitat, which can help increase your area’s bioshed (the relationship between humanity and wildlife). The process is quick and easy and requires only a $20 donation to NWF educational programs aimed at addressing the issues leading to declining habitat for wildlife nationwide. Kids love watching the critters, including butterflies, hummingbirds, wild turkeys, and even deer, that come calling. But, even if your local fauna consists of only squirrels and sparrows, you can still qualify for certification. As the NWF website states: Every habitat garden is a step toward replenishing resources for wildlife such as bees, butterflies, birds, and amphibians, both locally and along migratory corridors. By adding pollinator-friendly and monarch-friendly plants when you certify, your garden also counts toward the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, a nationwide call to action to preserve and create gardens and landscapes that help revive the health of bees, butterflies, birds, bats and other pollinators across America. http://millionpollinatorgardens.org