Nature and Gardening

Absolutely! I just added r/NoLawns over to https://slrpnk.net/c/nolawns for a pro native yard :) glad to see other people doing it

Me! We've reforested the sides of our ridge with about 12000 native plants. They are a couple years old now so slowly popping up but we've already noticed an increase in our birds/manu, especially tui who love the pohutukawa and harakeke

Yes absolutely, though I find it a difficult spectrum between pure conservationism vs ecology. I want to plant as many natives as possible, but perfect is the enemy of good, and ultimately I believe creating habitat and restoring a functional ecosystem takes precedence over trying to wind back the clock on colonisation.

I live in New Zealand and am in the process of creating a 35 hectare eco-community which includes 8 hectares set aside for wetland restoration and reforestation, and another 5 of already regenerating native bush. There are existing trusts we could ally with for support, however most of them stipulate planting purely natives, which I don't believe is practical. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.

Here gorse bushes imported by Scottish settlers spread rampantly on any ungrazed land, and the reccommended approach is to poison them as fast as possible and plant natives in their stead. We'd rather not use pesticides, but there are other options. Gorse is very vast growing and horrendously thorny, but that can actually be a benefit - animals like rabbits don't like to feed on it, so it can actually act as a nursery for young natives, and it requires full sun, so as soon as anything grows up from under it, it dies back.

Being able to step back and find ways for ecosystems to work together to restore themselves is the only cost effective/sustainable way to do it at the scale and speed we need to.

I try to plant as many native species as i can, outside of a couple food crops. But most of those are native anyway like berries and stuff

I'm planning to do my whole property like a little native plant sanctuary with lots of pollinators for the bees and stuff the local wild life would like, especially the beautiful birds!

I'm trying to get rid of my black thumb. I'm proud to say I've only killed 6 plants this year.

We've been working with a landscaper that specializes in native and edible plants. We've removed a lot of highly invasive plants that were previously growing out of control (although it's a constant fight to keep them away) and replaced them with fruit trees and native flowers.

We've also been trying to replace the grass in our yard with clover

I'm starting to convert my lawn to all natives.

I am one, from Sweden. This is only the second year I've had a garden and it's a slow process with the natives, but I already saw a difference from last year. However I also plant some food stuff (herbs, leafy veggies, tomatoes) in raised beds. We have old apple and cherry trees. Some bushes and the hedge are not native, but most of those were planted ca 1945 so I won't be touching them.

I do definitely and aggressively remove any invasives like lupines.

In my garden boxes, I'll plant herbs and vegetables that aren't native, but outside of the box, I always go for local native plants.

Since buying my house, I've planted over 20 different native species in my yard. Just recently planted 5 each of 2 different native ground covers and are attempting to start a lawn replacement with rhem!

I am! Sadly though with renting the property and being in the heart of my city/suburbs, it is hard to get away with going full native/no yard

Very much so, yes! We've removed most of the invasives from our property and the majority of plants we grow are native to our bioregion. Last year we grew a few hundred black chokeberries (Aronia melanocarpa) in an air prune box, and practiced some assisted migration growing Shepherdia canadensis in another. This year we're growing Carolina Allspice (Calycanthus floridus), Northern Bay (Myrica pensylvanica), and a few varieties of Viburnum to boot!

I'm working on restoring my 5 acres with native plants! I take a lot of pictures and talk about it some on my mastodon: https://sb17.space/@ater

@dominoko Love them! I do much better with outdoor plants in my desert landscape than houseplants though. I've finally managed to keep some houseplants alive, but it's only a matter of time.😟