Join us in becoming a climate-friendly gardener! Grow some of your own food, reduce food waste, make compost, and add more biodiversity around your home and neighborhood. All of these actions add up to create more resilient, sustainable landscapes. We're here to help you get started!
What is climate-resilient gardening?
Making our gardens more resilient means improving their ability to adapt to and recover from difficult conditions. Climate change is bringing more variable and extreme weather, flooding, heatwaves, warmer winters, and “false springs.” These changes are happening in Maryland already and have an impact on our gardening environment, plants, wildlife, and human health.
As gardeners, we all can have a positive influence on the green spaces we tend to – whether that’s a yard, a community garden, or a neighborhood tree planting. You can choose practices that mitigate or reduce emissions that contribute to climate change and adapt your garden so that it continues to thrive and be a productive and healthy place of enjoyment as conditions change.
What gardeners can do about climate change
Plant more diversity & native plants
- Planting Trees in Our Changing Climate
- Converting Lawns Into Diverse Landscapes: Case Studies
- Sustainable Landscape Designs: Foundation Plants for Townhomes
- Pollinator Gardens
- Landscaping for Resilience in a Changing Climate (online course)
Grow food locally and minimize food waste
- How to Start a Vegetable Garden
- Heat-tolerant Vegetable Crops and Cultivars for the Changing Climate (on our blog)
Compost food and yard waste
Protect and improve your soil
Manage stormwater and conserve water
- Incorporate Stormwater Practices (rain gardens, etc.)
- Conserve Water in Your Landscape
It's warming. It's us. We're sure. It's bad. We can fix it.
Dr. Kimberly Nicholas Associate Professor of Sustainability Science, Lund University