With your help, we will transform our front yard from lawn and overgrown shrubs to a pollinator oasis!
Ever since we moved into our headquarters in Lyme, New Hampshire, we have wanted to replace the front lawn with a bee-and-butterfly friendly native plant garden.
Native wildflowers and their pollinators deserve greater public attention and care; they play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems and are rapidly disappearing due to multiple factors, including pesticides, herbicides, and habitat loss. By creating a native plant garden, and using our social media platforms to document the diversity of pollinating insects that feed and reproduce in this space, we will model an approach to habitat restoration that anyone with even a small patch of lawn can replicate.
This spring we raised the initial funds needed to remove sod and lay in gravel paths to accommodate individuals with limited mobility. We are now seeking funds to cover the purchase of benches, native seeds, and starter plants that we’ll install with volunteer help from the community.
The proposed design was created by staff member Nancy Farwell. The plan reflects Nancy’s previous experience as a landscape architect, and guidance from Alicia Houk, founder of the Wild Garden Alliance. Nancy took an ecological gardening design class with Alicia, and subsequently, Alicia generously helped to refine aspects of our office garden plan, as Nancy led the rest of the Northern Woodlands staff through a review of design alternatives.
The result is an appealing design that will offer diverse habitat for native pollinators for many years, provide a resting area for local walkers, serve as a demonstration site and workshop venue for people interested in starting pollinator gardens, and offer a just-out-the-door opportunity to photograph and observe native plants, insects, and other arthropods.
Thanks to the Jack & Dorothy Byrne Foundation, the Lyme Foundation and generous neighbors for their help getting this project started!