Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Habitat gardening

In natural areas, the soil ecosystem supports the plants,
which support the insects, which in turn support
the birds and other wildlife.

Florida's default landscapes

Most yards in Florida consist of highly maintained monoculture lawns, a few stand-alone trees, and a fringe of foundation plants around the buildings. This is the opposite of habitat gardening because typical Florida lawn care includes regular landscape-wide applications of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and other poisons. Then since these pesticides are not good for the turfgrass, synthetic fertilizer is applied to keep it green.

This treatment damages the soil ecosystem (shown in the poster here), which plays an important role in keeping the plants healthy, which then support the insects and the birds. In addition, much of the lawn chemicals have rinsed through the soil or have been carried away with erosion to pollute our waterways causing too much algae growth and toxic dead zones.