O.P.P. Post 0.02 A Bit of Context on L.A. Today
Open Pollen Press Post 0.01
Landscape!
I have been an intermittent visitor to Ann Arbor, Michigan since the late ‘70s. While there I often enjoy a healthy, cardio pumping walk around town and campus. Back in the day there were always flocks of crows visiting central campus. This winter I saw none. Flocks of over wintering birds like sparrows and chickadees were common. Today they are rarer than rare. Without earbuds and filtering out traffic, U of M’s campus was an eerily silent landscape winter 2025.
The 2025 U.S. State of the Birds report “reveals continued widespread declines in American bird populations across all mainland and marine habitats…” (Cornell University, https://phys.org/news/2025-03-bird-populations-alarming-decline.html )
Habitat is Landscape!
Bird populations are a good indicator of a Landscape’s health and fertility. “When we see declines like those outlined in the [ 2025 State of the Birds ] report, we need to remember that if conditions are not healthy for birds, they’re unlikely to be healthy for us.” (Dr. Amanda Rodewald, phys.org/news/2025-03) Landscape is the world we inhabit. Landscape is humanity’s interface with the Biosphere.
Chickadees need thousands of caterpillars to fledge. Insects and lepidoptera (butterflies are moths) are keystones in the global food chain. “Whether they crawl, fly, squirm, or slither, insects get the job done: They maintain healthy soil, recycle nutrients, pollinate flowers and crops, and control pests. But by the end of the century, up to 40% of the world’s insect species may go extinct owing in part to habitat loss.” (World Wildlife Magazine spring-2023 )
Habitat is Landscape!
Is it possible to Landscape in such a way that bird populations rebound?
Yes! There are Landscaping techniques and practices that develop a more pleasant environment for pollinators, butterflies, birds and humans.
Mixed plantings of locally native flora develop beautiful, self-maintaining, low maintenance, scaffolding for Nature to develop locally adapted food chains.
Biodiverse native plantings provide habitat for insects, caterpillars and multifarious organisms. With food and habitat bird populations can rebound.
Native plant Landscapes, once established, require little to no maintenance. Anyone can develop and model Sustainable BioDeverse Landscaping. Anywhere.
“(T)hese designs tend to be highly engaging, as they also combine a rich palate of colors, textures, and fragrances.” (Jessa Finch, Center for the Environment, Ecological Design, and Sustainability (CEEDS), Smith College)
By providing habitat, Landscapes of Biodiverse native plantings directly intervene in the Biosphere collapse that Landscapes of insect and bird decline and die-off are. With a food supply birds, mammals, et. al. Prosper.
“We compared caterpillar communities in hedgerows that were invaded with non-natives versus hedgerows that were mostly native…There’s a 96% reduction in caterpillar biomass when they’re nonnative, so if you’re a bird and you’re trying to rear your young, you just lost 96% of your food.” stated Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware. “But there’s a flip side, he says. If you take the invasive species out and put the native plants in, you’ve just created 96% more food.”*
A Landscape of diverse multi-tiered plantings, that are 70% native plants, will increase the carbon capture of a place and kickstart a positive feedback process of Biospheric healing. Even one small Biodiverse native planting in an urban or suburban area can have an outsized effect. Islands of BioDeversity develop refuge for native organisms and add color and beauty to the landscape.
Biodiverse, multi-tiered plantings, (ground cover, herbaceous, grasses woody bush, vines short and tall trees) utilizing native plants that provide habitat for pollinators, especially lepidoptera, embedded in Landscape, will exponentially increase the Biodiversity of a yard’s, neighborhood’s, campus and watersheed’s microBiome. Local bird populations will rebound in a Restorative BioDeverse Landscape.
As more and more islands of BioDeverse Landscape propagate these islands will naturally emerge as nodes in a network of Biological coherence. Bees will tickle flowers, birds will nest and fledge. Humans will be able to Love in a landscape replete with birds and bees.
“There are four ecological functions every landscape must perform if we are to achieve a sustainable relationship with the natural world that supports us (and continuing to insist on landscapes that do not sustain mother nature is not and has never been a realistic option). It’s really very simple; our landscapes must do the things that enable ecosystems to produce the life support we and every other species requires.
Four Landscape Ecological Goals
- They must support a diverse community of pollinators throughout the growing season.
- They must provide energy for the local food web.
- They must manage the watershed in which they lie.
- They must remove carbon from the atmosphere where it is wreaking havoc on the earth’s climate.
How well a landscape accomplishes these goals depends on how well we, as landscape managers, choose and deploy the plants on our landscapes.” ( Doug Tallamy https://hgnp.wpengine.com/4-universal-landscape-goals/ )
Landscape design can exponentially increase the biological carbon capture/fertility/Biodiversity of a place. Healthy Landscape converts random atmospheric carbon to fecund vitality (Biosequestration). Life utilizes solar energy to complexly order random atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis. Plants feed Soil Life. Soil Life feeds plants. Plants feed animals. Animals return to Soil. It is Soil that undergirds the entire terrestrial food chain. Soil, given the opportunity, is a Living exponentially expanding Carbon filter/sponge.
Increasing the Biodiversity of a biome’s flora increases the Biodiversity in the soil. The greater the Biodiversity in the soil the greater the fertility and vibrancy of the Soil and the Biome. The greater the fertility the more stable and dynamic Biome and planetary food chains are.
A Landscape that supports birds and pollinators has a positive effect on human neural function. Being in a Landscape of natural texture and color, populated with birds, releases endorphins, and promotes healthy synaptic activity. By developing an environment that is engaging, alienation and isolation is reduced. This can help to reduce narcissism.
“Birds are excellent indicators of ecosystem condition because they are responsive to environmental change, have important ecological functions – such as seed dispersal and insect consumption, and are easy to observe.” ( Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, USGS )
“eBird is an ideal tool for recording bird observations, and a link to hundreds of thousands of citizen-scientist birdwatchers who use it every day. eBird is amassing one of the largest and fastest-growing biodiversity data resources in the world through user-submitted checklists that document the presence or abundance of species on your land.” (https://www.birds.cornell.edu/landtrust/what-is-ebird/ )
We have an opportunity to develop, quantify, and propagate Sustainable, BioRegenerative Landscapes, while simultaneously beautifying our built environments and reducing long term Landscape maintenance inputs.
BioDeverse Landscaping provides an opportunity for broad environmental education and research. Hands-on environmental and horticultural experience is green job training and development.
Developing and implementing actions of BioRestorative Landscaping provide an opportunity for individuals, groups, and organizations to cooperatively work together with and within a biological and social matrix, further strengthening community, learning and understanding.
Initiating plantings of native flora develop opportunities to propagate native plants as the plantings become the seed stock for further plantings. These seeds and seedlings can be used to further beautify, diversify and fecuntize more and more Landscape. In this way propagating native plants develops a BioRegenerating supply chain for BioDeverse Restorative Landscaping in any regional Biome on Earth.
Homo Sapiens have a choice. We can inhabit and bequeath a beautiful, rich and fertile Landscape. A Landscape that cared for, will house, feed, support and sustain all of us and our posterity. Or we can inhabit and bequeath a dystopic Landscape of tainted Water, barren soil, artificially green toxic lawns and fields seeping poisons, climate havoc, mass extinctions, environmental refugees and war’s rubble.
Nurturing soil life and plants nurtures the Homo Sapiens. Feel Free to critically research your native plants, soil, Biodiversity and Biological Restoration. Then commence Gardening. Make the world beautiful again. You’ll Love it!
Dig it!
* https://smithceeds.wordpress.com/tag/stacking-functions/
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The following links provide solid information on BioRegenerative Landscaping. Some of the information is specific to specific regions, but the principles expressed are applicable to any Biome on Earth.
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Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2LsUuhUZ8g&list=LL&index=111
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Where the Grass Grows
4 Reasons to Plant Native Grasses in Your Garden
by Jess Cole
October 22, 2024
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Get Started Planting Native
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