CCC is Looking for Habitat Heroes

By: Stacey Wildberger

Cape Conservation Corps wants to recognize good stewards of the land by highlighting your conservation

efforts.  What are you doing in your yards and gardens to provide habitat, shelter, and water essential for our wild friends? We want to know what steps you have taken to make your landscape wildlife friendly.  What nature-friendly landscaping are you using to be a good steward of your property?  We believe even the smallest changes can make a big difference and have a positive impact on the environment. If we decrease our own footprint we can begin to transform the natural world and build positive connections.

Please take a few minutes to let us know what changes you have made in your own gardens and landscapes to create healthy natural spaces for wildlife, promote clean waterways and be a good steward of your land and you could become our next Habitat Hero. We will spotlight you on our website and Facebook page as a Habitat Hero, and place a sign in your yard.

Please send an email to [email protected] to nominate yourself or a neighbor and tell us what they (or you!) are doing in their landscape that makes them a true Habitat Hero! If possible please include a photo or 2 showing your wildlife friendly space.

• Have you planted bird, butterfly, and other pollinator friendly native plants for food, cover, shelter, and host plants?
• Reduced your water usage by using native plants?
• Reduced the amount of lawn –adding more native groundcovers/herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees?
• Reduced or eliminated the use of chemicals in your yard for healthier, sustainable landscapes?
• Controlled or removed invasives from your property—English ivy, pachysandra, nandina, barberry, honeysuckle?
• Left the leaves for over wintering insects and winter food source for birds and small mammals, left plants standing until late spring?
• Added a water feature to your yard to attract frogs, toads, dragonflies, and birds?
• The possibilities are endless—please share what are you are doing to be a good steward.

Your yards do not to have to be 100% native or completely converted to a nature-friendly landscaping. We are looking for people who are making changes to a more sustainable, healthy habitat for wildlife to flourish. Each quarter we will select a habitat to feature on our website, and Facebook page.