Articles & Resources

Creating Sustainable Habitats
By Alan Gorkin, Director of Horticulture

With winter’s arrival, gardeners begin to think of spring.  So it is at the New Caanan Nature Center where plans are under way to re-dedicate the Susan Hanson Memorial Gardens, using a concept of sustainable and environmentally supportive habitats.  If you are a Connecticut suburbanite with an interest in things a "green", these gardens will provide you with a model that make a low impact on the environment, while requiring a low input from the gardener. 

Three guiding principles support the development and maintenance of a naturalist’s garden: 

1. Use as many native plants as possible;
2. Attract wildlife through your choice of plants and garden ornaments;
3. Encourage diversity in plants and animals

In following these principles, you will accommodate the birds and small animals that help make a garden successful. By following this guide, you will have provided food, such as berries, nuts, and seeds, water, shelter, and materials and sites for nesting.

Beginning in the summer of 2007, the gardens and ponds have received a complete review of their purposes, their structure, and their relationship to the New Caanan Nature Center as a whole.  In rethinking the gardens and their purpose it became clear that the idea of low impact-low input meant that the garden was expected to take care of itself.  Given nature’s need to fill every available space, this hands-off attitude had resulted in a mild form of chaos which eliminated both the charm of the original gardens and its value as a teaching tool. 

While many valuable plants were still there, they no longer served the purposes of the garden with their over-sized branches and root systems.  There was no sense of balance, either aesthetically or environmentally, and the deer seemed to be the only regularly-visiting wildlife to the garden, having reduced the plantings in some unfortunate and not-so-graceful ways.  It definitely was time for change!

Whenever possible, volunteer labor was used to help rebuild the garden. Local Boy Scouts  raised funds to purchase new trellising materials and stain, removed overgrown plants and replanted. Community service volunteers assisted with weeding and mulching, and garden volunteers did the same as well as contributed to sign interpretation and planning.

Two ponds contribute significantly to the sustainability theme.  By providing a water supply many small creatures and birds are attracted to the site. One of the ponds no longer had a secure base, and had to be emptied and re-lined. The small waterfall in this pond provides a great sense of moving water, and highlights the inclined slope which helps to set off this area from the grounds of the nature center as a whole. 

A few yards across the garden is a second pond, built in a figure eight and seems to emerge directly from the woods.  Both of these small bodies of water contain fish and turtles, an occasional snake, and provide the breeding grounds for dragon flies and other attractive winged friends. Since both ponds feature moving water, they do not provide a habitat for mosquitoes.  And smaller animals and deer will use these ponds for fresh water to drink. 

The garden also features a low stone wall as a part of its design to provide diversity for animal life.  The wall was built to enhance the ecological balance of the gardens.  It provides a home for field mice which prey on caterpillars, including the exotic invasive gypsy moth.  Small snakes will also inhabit the wall, keeping the mice and other organisms in check.  The wall also helps your eye to focus on the organized spaces around the ponds, easing gradually into a view of the wilderness-like areas behind the wall. The wall is, then, an example of the “garden ornaments” mentioned above that help to create a welcoming wildlife habitat while adding additional visual pleasure for the people who visit the garden.

The sustainability theme is also demonstrated by the use of sound methods of gardening throughout the year.  Heavy mulching, for natural moisture retention and weed suppression is essential if the garden is to be relatively non-demanding of its owners.  Various natural mulches are used here, including pine needles, leaf mold, and shredded leaves.  Minimal use of manufactured chemicals, to preserve human and ecological health is a second gardening method used extensively here.  In a garden where wildlife are welcomed, non-organic methods of pest control would seem to be a violation of nature’s trust.  And a third method of sound gardening will be implemented when funds permit us to install a drip irrigation system, minimizing the use of fresh water, the number one limited natural resource world-wide.  (Did you know that you do NOT need to water your grass?  The perennial grasses will go dormant when there is not enough water to keep them green; watering during those dry spells uses thousands of gallons of water that could be put to better use. Your grass will become green again when the fall rains return!)

Native plants are featured throughout these gardens.  Plants that are not native have, none-the-less, been added thoughtfully.  They represent species that have long resided in Northeastern U.S. and have shown themselves to be good visitors.  No plants have been used which have aggressive tendencies, or which might be considered invasive in any way.  “Exotic” is the name given to plants imported from other areas or other countries; “invasive exotics” are those plants which have been imported, deliberately or unintentionally, and which have found ways to invade and often conquer the native plants of the area.  In Connecticut, only about 100 of the state’s nearly 3,000 identified plant species are considered invasive exotics.  Amongst those you will most likely recognize are Lythrum (purple loosestrife); Asiatic Bittersweet; Winged Euonymous, or firebush; and Japanese Knotweed, growing everywhere along Connecticut highways.

And finally, a word about the National Wildlife Federation’s “Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat” program, started in 1973 in Virginia.  When these naturalist gardens were designed in 1990, NCNC leaders decided to bring to New England a taste of this new and wildly popular sustainable outdoor lifestyle.  As the first “Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat” program in the Northeast, these gardens helped set the standard for a collaboration between suburbanites and their surrounding environs, helping to create a balanced ecology from which all benefited.  You, too, can contribute to this national movement by following the requirements set forth by the National Wildlife Federation, and in so doing, your suburban gardens will contribute to the health of all.