Pages

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Lawn Biodiversity

Many people here in Ohio take pride in how their lawns appear.  Sadly they do not give much thought to the actual plant, insect, and other life that may rely on this area for survival.

Biodiversity (the diversity of life in a given area) is important for sustaining our environment, but can also be misunderstood on several levels.  For one, if you have a yard with many different plants this does not mean it may be better than a yard with only one type of plant.  One needs to take into account native and invasive species.  Insects and other life rely on resources such as plants that are native to their habitat.  If a person plants species that do not naturally grow in an area they may be removing a life source for natives.

One example of the importance of biodiversity is the availability of pollen for honey bees.  Without the right resources, honey bees are not able to survive and consequently can no pollinate things like crops that we rely on for food.

If you are doing lawn work and are not sure what is native, what is invasive, and what would be the most useful plant life to make available in your yard, please take the time to do a little research.  Your states department of conservation, or department of natural resources should have information listed on their websites.  Also our local agriculture extension office would be more than happy to give you information.

For my Ohio readers, here is some information about Invasive Plants of Ohio.

5 comments:

Matt said...

A few weeks ago I went to Wal*Mart to buy tomato seeds so I could have fresh tomatoes to cook with. I don't have a very green thumb...so I just dumped the whole packet into the large planting pot with the soil, covered it and have been watering it ever since.

Now I have about 20 tomato plants in this one little pot and am expected about a million tomatoes (these are cherry tomato plants). I'm not very bio-diverse! Thanks for the lesson. :-)

judyschoon said...

Matt, you can transplant them, not too late....and you will be greatly rewarded :)

Pastor Jim said...

Thank's for the informastion Chrissy, it is nice to see you doing a little more writting:)
Blessings!

Renee said...

Great information, Chrissy Joy.

Renee said...

Great information, Chrissy Joy.