If your New Year’s resolution is to join hands with others to make the world a better place, start in your own backyard. Big change can come from small scale refurbishing and the lives you save will repay your kindness with fruit, food, erosion control, and an increase in oxygen from the bevy of plant offspring produced by pollination.
Just don’t be surprised that the helping hand you reach out is accepted by a claw in gratitude; and please don’t squeeze. The tiny denizens of a healthy garden include bees, beetles, butterflies, birds, moths, flies, and bats who move pollen in important ways. Good habitat is a premium for them, and you can help by creating pollinator friendly gardens.
Audubon Rockies wants to help you in your resolution, offering the Habitat Heroes – Gardening for Beauty and Birds workshop, Saturday, March 5, 9 a.m. to noon at the Boulder County Parks and Open Space building in Longmont, Colorado. As part of the Habitat Heroes program, the workshop features two speakers who give advice for creating meaningful gardens with pollinators in mind.
The Habitat Heroes program encourages gardeners to practice wildscaping, a form of landscape stewardship that utilizes native plants, minimizes water consumption, and provides habitat for birds, bees, and wildlife, large and small. According to the Audubon Rockies press release, it doesn’t matter if your landscape is a residential yard, a few pots on a balcony, a public park, schoolyard garden, orchard or farm – the concepts can be used in many forms.
As more wildscaped gardens emerge, they’ll create a mosaic of habitats that link to larger natural areas, providing a mix of food and shelter for wildlife and insects across urban areas.
This half-day workshop is for both novice and veteran gardeners who are interested in wildscaping tips and techniques, attracting wildlife in an urban environment, eliminating chemicals in the landscape and minimizing water consumption. The workshop features two prominent gardening and horticultural experts:
Marcia Tatroe, writer and columnist for Sunset Magazine and the Denver Post, and author of Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West and Perennials for Dummies. Marcia will discuss how wildlife habitat can coexist within a covenant controlled community, and how to ensure your garden pleases both wildlife and fastidious neighbors.
Deryn Davidson, a Colorado State University Horticulture Extension Agent for Boulder County. Deryn will explore how gardens can be designed to enhance the aesthetics of a site, attract pollinators and provide habitat for an array of wildlife.
If you go:
What: Habitat Heroes – Gardening for Beauty and Birds, sponsored by Audubon Rockies, Boulder County Audubon Society, Terra Foundation and in partnership with CSU Extension, Boulder County.
Where: Prairie Room, Boulder Country Parks and Open Space, 5201 St. Vrain Rd., Longmont
When: Saturday, March 5. The workshop begins at 9:00 a.m.
Registration: $15.00 per person. Visit brownpapertickets.com with the keyword Habitat Hero.
Door Prize: Win a Garden in a Box, an exclusive pre-planned garden from High Country Gardens.
