Do a little less this fall when tidying up your yard while giving birds, pollinators and other animals a reliable food source and nesting sites through winter. A few tips from the Credit Valley Conservation:
- Skip raking and bagging leaves. Leaves make good mulch for your garden. You can also add them to your backyard compost (or save them for future compost balancing).
- Put away the pruners. Leave plant stems and grasses standing. Standing dry seed heads provide food for birds while stems and long grasses provide nesting sites for insects.
- Don’t till or turn soil. A layer of compost covered with mulch and leaves will help keep soil healthy for spring.
A few other bits of info on fall garden clean up with pollinators in mind from Almanac.com, as well as winterizing your garden with a permaculture perspective.
And as September 23rd is the Day for Climate Action, here are a few other things you can do to make even small but meaningful changes towards a better climate future:
- Green your home. As we head into winter, energy bills and heating our homes can start to come to the front of the mind. Cut a large amount of our biggest proportion of community emissions (45%), through some simple fixes like insulation, air sealing and more. Check out EnviroCentre’s Greening Your Home blog.
- Green your commute. Transportation accounts for 42% of community emissions! Find ways to reduce your transportation footprint here. Try winter cycling, switch to an Electric Vehicle, car pool and more.
- Green your yard habits & plant more trees! The tree canopy, among other native and diverse plants and animals, plays a huge role in many aspects of climate change big and small including greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity and food production, storm and drought resilience, energy use, air quality and more.
Get your free tree from Ecology Ottawa THIS COMING WEEKEND – Sept 23 & 24th in Stittsville and West Barrhaven. Also check out the City of Ottawa Trees in Trust program.
- Consume less, waste less, enjoy life more. Check out:
- David Suzuki Foundation – sustainable living
- Green Living resources from Ottawa’s EnviroCentre
Help raise awareness & our collective climate action by sharing or supporting these Canadian climate action artists here. Or start a Climate Conversation – check out Talk Climate To Me.
Join a local green group: For Our Kids Ottawa-Gatineau, CBLCA Enviro Subcommittee, Eco West Enders (share any other groups you follow or are a part of below in the comments)
Leave a Reply