Our urban homestead is now a certified wildlife habitat thanks to the National Wildlife Federation (and a small fee).
There is a house in our neighborhood with a metal plaque on one of their large trees stating they are certified, which is what originally piqued my interest. A couple months later, the fine folks over at GardenPunks wrote a great blog post about their certification process as well. I couldn’t help but wonder if my urban plot would pass the test.
I went online to the NWF site where the application is (right here) and began the questionnaire. There are a few different areas you need to reach a minimum qualification score on. The main sections are Food, Water, Cover, Places to Raise Young, Sustainable Gardening Practices.
On our homestead, we provide lots of food for wildlife naturally on our property: berries, flora, fruit, nectar. But when it comes to water provided, we only have a birdbath. It has inspired me to consider a butterfly puddling area or a small pond. Because we can never have too many projects in our gardens, right? The last section on sustainability was where we really cleaned house. Only two methods were needed, but we had eight!
Once you meet minimum qualifications, the registration fee is $15 and you receive a certificate. I paid an extra $25 because I wanted the damn metal plaque for outside! I’m proud of the achievement and the plaque was also the initial way I began inspired to have my habitat become certified.
I am really excited for the neighbor kids that lounge all afternoon in our front yard to ask me about the sign. They don’t appear to have anyone at home teaching them about wildlife, nature, growing healthy food, etc. This should be a great conversation started, even with my adult neighbors stopping for an evening chat. And I am really excited to explore the possibilities of some new water features!
This is off topic, but I am interested to find out how you like your black dome composter. We are finally ready to move to more composting and I saw your reference to it in an earlier post. Should I be looking around more or is the one from Metro pretty much the best way to go?
Congratulations! I can’t wait to hang my sign in the front yard, but seeing as we’re allowing our grass to die this summer, people might question what in the heck we are doing and how dead grass equates with wildlife habitat? Maybe I’ll put it up next year….
cool! I am going to go and have a look. I love stuff like this. Kids being drawn to your sign may make them aware of nature and also give them a little ownership of your ideals and especially your sign!! (maybe they won’t allow it to be taken down!!)
Joan – Actually, I think the three bin system is better than the black dome, or any premade composter. The 3-bin system makes it easier to turn the compost and rotate between new, semi-composted, and ready for the garden.
Katie and Don – Glad you guys are excited too! I smile every time I see it in my garden.