What is the SLGC’s Proposed Role in GCA’s “Save the World” Initiative?

To offer a means of spreading the word.

The GCA and the SLGC both self-identify as educational nonprofit organizations.

In four or five locations across the United States, citizen groups have partnered with their regional chapters of the National Audubon Society, also an educational nonprofit organization, and one which holds a specific level of partnership with the GCA, to create teams of volunteers (and in one case, partially paid staff members) who offer their services to their neighbors, in order to help those neighbors turn their home landscapes into environments that support healthy life for all beings living there – the trees, the plants, the birds, the animals, the pollinators, the human beings who “own” those little parcels of nature. In short, to do what Doug Tallamy and the GCA ask us each to do individually: turn our properties into a Homegrown National Park.

A few of our club’s native plant enthusiasts have entered into such a project with the Audubon Society of Greater Cleveland (ASGC). We hope to engage a bunch more.

If you were able to attend either of the last two SLGC meetings, you will have heard Jane Ellison’s telling tale of how the light bulb over her head was lit. A year and a half ago, Jane was miserably bedbound following surgeries to repair a shattered kneecap. She and the physical therapist were discussing how the PT might be able to transform her lifeless backyard into a joyful place full of birdsong and butterflies. The PT opined, “I wish there were someone just to tell me what to do – I don’t have time to do all the research to find out.”

When I was in the landscape design business back in Maryland, I offered hourly consultations to people who had recently purchased new homes in the area. They wanted to know what was growing in their yards, and how to take care of it – or, in some cases, how to get rid of it. An hour or two of informative chatter, that was what clients wanted.

Many of us have heard these questions arise. What do I have? How do I care for it? How do I FIX it? And now, in this time of ecological concern, how do I make it better? How do I get back the fireflies I recall from childhood? How do I show my children baby birds in a nest, when I cannot find them anymore? Why are there no more turtles? Where did the Luna moths go?

There are many answers, and they cover a range of actions which different levels of homeowners will or will not be willing to adopt. One person might be willing to give up using insecticides (YES!), another might be willing to remove some of their invasive nonnative plants in favor of native plants that will feed and shelter small wildlife. A third might be willing to convert their lawn (their water-hungry, fungicide- and chemical-soaked lawn that requires weekly maintenance with gas-guzzling equipment) into a meadow. Most won’t go that far. Jane and I each have areas of lawn; we are not total extremists, but we applaud them. Client homeowners don’t have to do it all, just find a place that is comfortable for them to inhabit, along the spectrum of transforming the modern, sterile suburban yard into a healthy ecosystem.

So we are beginning a pilot program with the ASGC. Legal responsibilities will fall under the auspices of our partner organization, which will also create our organization’s website and will pay for our branding initiative. In short, SLGC as a legal entity takes on no formal role. But the leadership of the organization will, we hope, evolve into a core of volunteers that will include many of our members. We will train members to recognize problem plants, to suggest replacements or new ideas for planting, to explain the conditions of the spaces we are evaluating. We are now in the process of writing our plant lists, of coordinating source lists, and even of creating research material lists and reading lists for clients who wish to become more deeply involved. But our organization will not take on the role of designers or long-term partners for our clients; we will simply be information sources.

Would you like to learn to be an information source? Would you like to be part of this team? Or are you a homeowner who would like to use our services? During our pilot period, we’d be happy to start close to home, as it were, with our friends and club members. Please speak with one of the two of us if you are interested. We’re building now, but we hope to begin active “doing” very soon, and we’d love for you to join us.