Garden-powered: New program offered to Island homeowners

Story and Photo by Alice Gerard

Senior Contributing Writer

The Grand Island Nature Alliance is now offering a program for homeowners to encourage them to see their gardens as a native habitat for pollinators and other indigenous species of plants and animal, said GINA member Michelle Lockett.

“We’re really excited about this. The Grand Island Nature Alliance has been around since March of 2023,” Lockett said. “We’ve been doing a series of outdoor walks and talks, teaching people about … first of all, where our trails are on Grand Island. A lot of people don’t know where they are. We keep expanding that trail network, so we’re really excited about showing people more trails.”

GINA’s next event, titled “An Introduction to Native Plants,” is scheduled for 6 p.m. March 26 at the Grand Island Memorial Library. The presenter, Erie County Master Gardener Kathy Contrino, will discuss the beauty and benefits of native plants, as well as why native plants are necessary to maintain a sustainable environment.

The programs that GINA sponsors, as well as other programming, including events offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension’s master gardener program, count toward fulfilling the educational requirement of the habitat certification process.

“One of the things that you have to do to get certified is to attend one or two educational programs,” Lockett said. “You don’t have to go to just ours. On our website, we listed a bunch of Cornell Cooperative Extension programs and the Alt Nature Preserve (the Citizens Coalition for Wildlife and the Environment) is a partner of ours. We will be doing a program at their center on April 10, too. All their programs count toward certification.

“Once people get certified, we have this beautiful sign. You can see a picture of it on our website. It says, ‘Grand Island Habitat Certification.’ There’s a beautiful drawing from Sonia (Merkel), our local Grand Island artist who did our logo and all of our creative Grand Island artwork. We hope that people will display that proudly and just spread the word that we have this Grand Island certification program which, I believe, is the only town in our area that has a specific town program like this.”

Merkel, who is a member of GINA, explained there are a variety of things homeowners can do to have their property named a certified habitat. These include encouraging biodiversity and creating inviting places for animals to stay safely during the winter.

“There are different things that you can implement in your yard to really try to increase the biodiversity and the beneficial ecological footprint that your own space can have,” she said. “So, for example, providing habitat is more than just a birdhouse. You can leave brush or sticks in an untended corner of your yard. That’s a perfect space for birds to rest in the winter. It encourages lots of other little creatures to view your yard as a home for them, as well.

“You can do things like puddling for butterflies,” Merkel said. “It’s really important in the summertime. So, leaving little dishes with stones in them out under some brush or under a hydrangea. That’s a good place for a butterfly to rest and take a drink.

“There’s a lot of little ways that you can support the wildlife that already exists in your yard, and you can encourage more biodiversity. One of the big things that we would like to bring attention to is reducing or eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in your yards. Those things have large impacts on insect species. You can really improve the quality of your soil and encourage more life by eliminating those practices and turning to different ones.”

Properties that can be certified can be of any size.

Merkel said, “For very small spaces, even having a few pollinator attractors on your patio or by your front door. Those things are all going to help to bridge the gap that a pollinator has to travel from one area to another to try to get food. Depending on the space that you do have available, there are going to be some limitations, but everyone can do a little bit.”

“We don’t have a certification for people who live in apartments yet,” Lockett said. “It would have to be some kind of container gardening, I guess. I would encourage everyone to come to our programs to learn about it.

“We’re basically trying to teach people how they can focus their yard as a native habitat, meaning they have native plants in there, not cultivars or things that don’t necessarily belong in our area, including invasive species. Plants that might look pretty to us from afar are not always beneficial to our wildlife. It’s that mindset change of seeing your yard that you’re sharing with actual creatures that live out there.”

One question that homeowners may ask is when to begin spring cleanup.

Merkel explained, “One of the best practices for gardening in the spring is to just wait until the soil is above 50 degrees regularly. You give those little insects time to come out of their sleep cycle and really have a successful spring and summer. I leave all of my seedheads, the stems, the branches and pretty much anything that’s in my garden that’s not my vegetables. I take those down. In the spring and summer, when things come back, they come back stronger. With the creatures that have overwintered in my yard, I am happy that they were able to have a refuge here.”

The goal of the habitat certifications program, Merkel said is “Getting people curious. Getting people to go outside and see what’s there and how they can support what exists, as opposed to trying to consider it an extension of your living room, where everything is mowed and manicured and perfect. Embracing that less-tended (look). I’m a chaos gardener. Everything is rambunctious and chaotic and green. It’s kind of all over the place.

“It’s really about learning, and I’ve learned so much just by being involved with the folks from GINA. We’re all learning from each other. I think that’s really fun about this program, too. We hope to do something where we have a community of gardeners and people curious about gardening and about yards and habitats, really engaging and learning from each other, as this process develops.”

The first yard to be a certified habitat belongs to Suzanne Tomkins and John Study.

“John and I have always gardened, and like many folks, we began to become familiar with the importance of native plants around six years ago,” Tomkins said. “That knowledge coincided with our move to a new home on a treeless lot. Since then, we have worked to create a yard that supports birds and bees and wildlife. We have enjoyed all of the GINA events and learning more about our changing environment. This coming summer, our yard will be included in the Urban Farm Tour. It’s an opportunity for us to talk about the Grand Island habitat certification and show others how they can support wildlife by creating a habitat incorporating native plants and trees, providing shelter and water, and using organic gardening techniques vs. pesticides and chemical fertilizers.”

GINA has been busily creating opportunities for Islanders to explore their natural environment, Lockett said.

“We’re doing tree identification walks, where we’re telling (people) about the different types of trees on Grand Island,” she said. “We’re doing foraging walks so they can actually see where the edible plants are on Grand Island. We’ve done a purple martin walk. We’ve done a couple of native plant sales, so we’re trying to teach people about native plants and how important they are for ecosystems. And we’re going to be teaching more about invasives. We’ve talked a little bit about them, but we haven’t brought in an official program, and I now have one scheduled for this summer. WNY Prism is coming in to do an invasive species walk and talk at the Nike Base.

“We did an owl prowl this past fall, which was a lot of fun. Hopefully, we’ll do another one of those. We are in the works, scheduling a bird walk with Alec Humann. So, we’re pretty excited about that.”

GINA has been part of the Birds on the Niagara, which is an annual international event that includes programming in both Western New York and southern Ontario.

For more information about GINA, upcoming programs, as well as for an application for a property to become a certified habitat, check GINA’s website at https://gi-naturealliance.org/.

Those interested in getting more involved in helping the GI Nature Alliance with programing coordination, communications and/or stewardship projects can email [email protected].