From Leonard Green at ChangeHampton:
MONEY BACK FOR PLANTING NATIVES!
The Peconic Estuary Partnership is offering a $500 rebate against our purchase of Native Plants if you live n the Watershed. Check out the program here.
Why we should all be planting Natives
What we do on land increasingly determines the future of our water. What happens on land affects the water quality and health of our bays and estuaries. Our Peconic watershed has seen a steady and rapid growth of population and development, resulting in rising pollution, contaminated storm runoff, loss of both habitat and ecological resilience.
What we do in our yards affects OUR WATERSHED HEALTH.
Land development results in soil compaction, which reduces rainwater infiltration. Our lawns, public and private, have replaced deep rooted native ecosystems with predominantly shallow rooted turf mono-cultures.
Turf Lawns rival agriculture in use of fertilizers, pesticides and water. Homeowners use more than 70 million pounds of pesticides a year. According to an EPA study of New England, somewhere between 40 to 60% of that ends up in surface and groundwater. When it rains, our roadways become rivers carrying the nitrogen and chemical components of fertilizers and pesticides into our harbors, estuaries, lakes and bays.
What can we do?
HEALTHY SOIL MAKES A HEALTHY WATERSHED
Because of land development, we have replaced healthy, porous soil biomes with compacted, dense soil. We have replaced healthy habitats with sterile monocultures.
But we can also reverse this. There are native grass alternatives to lawns. Native gardens and meadows are attractive alternatives to non-native turf grass monocultures.
This is why the Peconic Estuary Partnership promotes native plantings:
“Stormwater filtered through the soil, sand and gravel within rain or native plant gardens is dramatically cleaner when it enters our groundwater, nearby bodies of water and storm drains.”
What we are listening to:
“Rethink Your Lawn…” NY Times garden columnist, Margaret Roach, interviews ecological horticulturist, Dan Jaffe Wilder.
Sources:
https://www.barnegatbaypartnership.org/protect/threats-to-barnegat-bay/soil-health-in-the-watershed/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/11/forget-what-your-neighbors-think-stop-dousing-your-lawn-with-so-much-fertilizer/
https://ny.audubon.org/conservation/lawn-pesticides
