You could make a project. With a pinned location - and a wider area across the suburb (against privacy and security concerns) ‘in a garden in this suburb’.
And when you find other similar projects for other gardens in your region, create an umbrella project for garden projects like yours. For fellowship and also so that others can see neighborhoods with at least one neighbor interested in ecological restoration. I like the idea of regional umbrella projects for native gardens in particular regions. If I were in my 20s it’s how I’d look for a neighborhood to buy a house in.
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Our house is THE Green one in our street. Still going to get my ‘habitat’ sign from Fynbos LIFE
https://www.facebook.com/fynboslife/posts/4773846146046763
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Apologies in advance if I’m misunderstanding your comment. I actually did make a project for this garden, as it (the garden) is freely open to anyone and I’m more or less not really connected to the shul nor do I live close enough by for it to raise immediate privacy concerns. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/jrc-s-native-plant-garden If anyone is interested.
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I talked to a Nature expert who does professsional development and maintainance of our natural school square. He mentioned that it was a very bad year for butterflies in the Netherlands. Ha! My observation of this pattern was correct! I only observed three different species this year. And none on my balcony! Hopefully 2024 will be a better year. Butterflies are so beautiful, so lovely 
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I did this with my garden for a period of 3 years until I moved, by the time I moved I had identified about 180 different species including insects, birds and arachnids. It was amazing to see the diversity and boom in pollinators by removing the lawn and planting native plants. I even had a Golden Northern Bumble bee visit the garden. And a hummingbird! That was the highlight of my year that year because I had no bird feeders of any kind. I had a pair of wrens make their home in my garden, cardinals visiting and a carbird. Countless pollinators, cuckoo wasps, cuckoo bees.
Now I’m keeping track of the wildlife in my current home. Landscaped with Invasives, I’m slowly removing them and planting natives.
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Is there a project for your new garden?
Returning to nature after adding better plants is an exciting stage.
Might you also be growing her plants?
https://www.clayandlimestone.com/2023/11/wildflower-wednesday-so-thankful-for.html
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I don’t have a project. I probably should start one.
I don’t have any willowleaf aster. But I do have aromatic aster which at my previous place was full of clouded yellow butterflies but interestingly enough not a whole ton of pollinators at my new home. Likely because it’s the first years. Next year will be different I’m sure.
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I don’t feel like managing a project, but I am curious how much diversity my tiny, second-floor balcony will get.
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I noticed there is really not much to manage. Once set up, the only thing I am doing is selecting another field of information when uploading. What I do now is: add the photos and location, (make a note), the date/time are automatic, select the project, crop the photo, enjoy identifying the species. And adding the project can be done in bulk, so it is very easy to ‘manage’!
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It is really easy.
Set it up with a (wider) pinned location for privacy.
Then - add to your project - when you upload.
And rewarding to have that list to play with
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Hey Dina, so I tried making a project but can’t figure out how to limit the observations to only my property??
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I made a pinned location for my suburb.
But I also deliberately add my obs to my project.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/elephant-s-eye-on-false-bay
There are several types of projects: collection projects, traditional projects, and umbrella projects (if you’re not familiar with the differences, see here).
If you want to use a collection project (observations automatically added based on project parameters), you will need to create a place for your property to use as a selection criteria.
If you have a small property or prefer to obscure observations made there, you may prefer to use a traditional project (you add applicable observations manually). The option to create a traditional project is a bit hidden on the page for creating new projects. You need to ignore the big green buttons and go down to the bottom of the page and click on the bit of blue linked text to create a traditional project.
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Thanks!!
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I noticed that in late December things started sprouting on my balcony. Very early, winter just started! It has been warm for winter, so it is understandable too.
I bet more knowledgable minds have more sensible things to say about this phenomenon. I just notice the growth, see below.
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In New Mexico, next year’s spring annuals germinate in October and November (low and mid desert). However, our winters have always swung between warm sunny days and cold fronts.
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I was pretty gutted by 2020-2022 for all sorts of reasons, my small pollinator garden was hit hard by a mix of harsh summers and ice storms - we lost a bunch of pollinator-friendly plants due to frozen tree branches falling on them twice. So in 2023 I decided to really work on the yard, removing invasives, building up native flowering plants for pollinators, and esp. putting in host plants for local insects. We have some nice host plants already with live oaks and hackberries, but I’ve added a native passion vine for the fritillaries and put in other plants to support local Lepidoptera, we have a couple local milkweeds, etc. This fall I seeded the front and back yard with wildflower seeds I harvested locally so next year we should get some coming in and I’ll keep that going.
My house iNaturalist count is 456 insect species, 188 Lepidoptera. I’ve been observing bugs for years, and mothing for a while but my count grew a lot this year with the regular garden visits, and I’ll be expanding the pollinator garden and keep making daily observations next year.
I work at Apple and in internal chat rooms I’m a native plant evangelist and generally spreading the message.
Making a project sounded cool, so I just made one and I have a question, how does one get one’s new garden project added to the umbrella project here?
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/home-projects-umbrella?tab=about
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Leave a comment here - with a link to your project and moderators will add it for you.
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