Ideas for foresting the nature in our backyard/lawn or garden!

Figured I would begin a string as a catchment for thoughts and musings on empowering and advancing nature in our backyards*. At the point when I say patio I mean it from a wide perspective understanding that not every person has a private lawn and more in the feeling of the region near where one resides.

Inside this wide catchment of thoughts I am trusting thoughts are shared that may incorporate yet are not restricted to stewardship, naturescaping, teaching, getting the hang of, coaching, driving, presenting, eliminating, support, and best practices.

Welcome are any tips, stunt, alternate route, expertise, adjustment, or oddity technique that cures inadequacies of, helps in, or builds everything to do with cultivating nature in your/our [area]. MacGyver, Duct Tape, memory aides, and so on methodologies are welcome. Counting things that are in a real sense in your terrace.

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Welcome to the forum.

The only outside space I have is the two meters of walkway from my front door to the street. I have window sills, but my cat knocks down anything and everything I put on them.
So, I have a few indoor plants. ones that can tolerate lots of shade. That’s life renting a basement I guess.

My landlord actually does keep a beautiful garden, but she plants for beauty, not for the benefit of local non-human organisms. I am considering suggesting a few native and nature-friendly species for when she starts up again in the spring.

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Here are some relevant older threads that might have some helpful tips:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/ideas-on-fostering-nature-in-your-our-area/8759
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/where-to-get-native-plants-for-a-pollinator-garden/1059
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/moth-gardening-host-plants-and-pollination-plants/14288
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/gardening-for-conservation/16124
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/should-i-plant-cultivated-natives-and-wild-population-conservation/8642
In particular resources for finding and choosing native plants I think.

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Well, for patio birds, Lisa Myers, who owns the Los Gatos Birdwatcher store advised to me to have:

Water (to drink/bathe)
Food (feeders and/or shrubs that produce seeds or berries)
Cover (more plants and shrubs).

There’s more info at:
http://www.losgatosbirdwatcher.com/

And: Lisa’s YouTube talk, Birdy Hour: How to Help Birds on the Home Front
https://youtu.be/zgDXuh3DUQ0

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For chemical-free weed controls in patios, or any other cracks in paving, I accidentally got to know a little-known native (New Zealand) sedge that grows no more than 10cm high in that situation, generally much less, forming a soft, walkable, perennial ground cover in the cracks that prevents further weed invasion.

I found it by removing from the cracks, or suppressing with mulch placed in or over the cracks, only those weeds that I knew grew big and ugly or inconvenient there…ie dandelions, creeping buttercup, grasses…I learned more plants in the process, and kept eliminating them, till this wee softie became dominant through elimination.

Now I spread its seeds into other cracks and bare areas, and also in my restoration plot in a nearby public Reserve.

And I rarely have a weed to remove now from a much-cracked driveway and a brick-tiled path.

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I have something similar in my Cape Town garden. But it dies back in summer, so doesn’t manage to suppress the various daisies.

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Weird but kinda flattered in the Oscar Wilde sense. The first three paragraphs of this post are pretty much lifted from my earlier post but instead of fostering it is foresting.

Topic is still a valid one.

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That is … odd. Copypasta without credit. Not the iNat way.

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Maybe OP thought that this was the solution to a closed thread, which it’s not.

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Maybe, or they are kicking tires, taking the forum for a test drive as it were. Their first post after 4m total read time on the forum.

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Woah weird, I didn’t notice that…

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Even the asterisk behind backyards is still there in the first sentence - which had meaning in my post because of an edit. :thinking:

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Yes, I looked at your 2019 post . You have a genuinely nice response to the “imitation is the greatest form of flattery” style of this post.

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Plant native species!

Suggested reading “Nature’s* Best *Hope” by Doug Tallamy

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Agreed. At a minimum, watch the most recent version of his talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAbO1a67_mM (presentation starts around the 5:30 mark)

I couldn’t resist. Would you like some cheese on your copypasta?

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Crumbly blue please (and I can’t take credit for the word - but, I do like it.

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@joeysantore

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