Happy New Year! 12 Rewilding Success Stories

Big ch-ch-ch-changes: "Dear Avant Gardener" is now “Design Your Wild.”

My daughter Zoe and me going wild for our new name, Design Your Wild (photo: Stephanie Ewens)

“The first step in saving nature is the rewilding of our own minds.”

So says conservationist and former Patagonia CEO Kristine McDivitt Tompkins in her TED Talk. She’s speaking about successfully creating 15 million acres of national parks in South America and, currently, connecting protected lands into wildlife corridors. But her quote is equally applicable to each of our individual efforts to rewild our yards.

To support wildlife in our yards and communities, we need to rewild our minds: Holes where caterpillars have eaten leaves are signs of healthy ecosystems, not sick ones. Dead trees — snags — are rife with life, not waste to be removed. And fallen leaves are future soil, not unsightly lawn killers. And so on.

Where will the children play?

But to revel in our yards, we need to go beyond wild, applying a very human aptitude: design. Because you can’t simply replace your entire lawn with meadow: What will draw you (in addition to wildlife) into it? How will you walk through it? Which attributes will make it restorative? What will make it beautiful, not ratty (as one reader called her yard)? And, as Cat Stevens says, where will the children play?

Rewilding is an opportunity to create great beauty — and bring joy — through both how we invite nature into our yards and how we arrange the plants and other elements within it. The butterflies fluttering around my beach mistflowers today bring me joy. But so does the circle of limestone gravel, edged with conch shells, that I created. The gravel patio highlights the beauty of the plants through contrast and connects our front stairs to paths that lead me through the garden.

Our new name: Design Your Wild

To emphasize our focus on design and to free us from the connotations of “garden,” Zoe and I are renaming this newsletter “Design Your Wild.” Our subject remains the same: the art + science of ecological landscaping. I hope you agree that “Design Your Wild” captures that concept neatly with a nice rhetorical flourish (antithesis).

In the more than two years since I launched this newsletter, I have learned that gardening often suggests growing edibles — not my topic. I also discovered a gender issue of which, as a lifelong city dweller, I was unaware. As a rule, men do traditional yard work, women do ornamental gardening. “Rewilding” combines elements of both — while negating much of each.

What you can expect

So, what can you expect from Design Your Wild in the coming year? First, you will once again be receiving the newsletter from Substack. You’ll be able to comment on articles once again. And you’ll also be able to support our work through paid subscriptions ($30 per year).

Thanks to feedback from many of you in our recent poll, we will also be offering 90-minute live online workshops on yard design. The first topic will be “Quick and Easy Yard Layouts.” Stay tuned for registration information. Paid subscribers receive free admission to two workshops; the fee for nonsubscribers will be $25 per workshop.

Also by popular demand, Zoe and I have begun work on a book. We are thrilled to put the innovations we developed for our Transform Your Yard course into book form. (The course itself proved much less popular, probably because of the high cost and time commitment, so we will not be offering it this year.) We are exploring creating a card deck of native plants, which was likewise very popular.

Finally, you may address me as “Dear Heather” now — though I’ll still answer to “The Avant Gardener,” if you prefer.

Wishing you and your family happiness in the New Year,

Heather

P.S. I’d love to hear from you! Comment below or hit “reply” with questions or observations.

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12 Rewilding Successes

Conservation works — and thanks to a 2024 study, there’s data to prove it:

We conducted a global meta-analysis of 186 studies (including 665 trials) that measured biodiversity over time and compared outcomes under conservation action with a suitable counterfactual of no action. We find that in two-thirds of cases, conservation either improved the state of biodiversity, or at least slowed declines. Specifically, we find that interventions targeted at species and ecosystems, such as invasive species control, habitat loss reduction and restoration, protected areas, and sustainable management, are highly effective, with large effect sizes. This provides the strongest evidence to date that conservation actions are successful… — Science

Here’s a roundup of how Americans — from individuals to entire cities — are supporting biodiversity.

1. Single-handedly repopulating the California pipevine swallowtail butterfly

Biologist Tim Wong with California pipevine swallowtails (Battus philenor hirsuta) in his yard. To repopulate this rapidly declining species, he cultivates their host plant, the California pipevine (Aristolochia californica). (Photo: Tim Wong)

Further reading: Climate Hero Tim Wong, One Earth

2. Bringing life to a historic cemetery in Brooklyn

Since 2017, Green-Wood’s horticulture team has been transitioning its hundreds of acres of traditional lawns to “managed meadows.” The hillside Chapel Meadow, designed by Larry Weaner and Associates, consists of shrubs and herbaceous perennials. (Source: Green-Wood Cemetery)

Further reading: Life After Death: America’s Cemeteries Are Rewilding, The New York Times

3. No longer endangered, alligators protect the Everglades ecosystem

Thanks to being listed as endangered in 1967, alligators have recovered from near extinction. Recently, scientists have demonstrated how alligators act as ecosystem engineers, creating habitat for other organisms in the ponds they create.

Further reading: An apex predator engineers wetland food-web heterogeneity through nutrient enrichment and habitat modification, Journal of Animal Ecology

4. Elementary school students in Bridgeport transform lawn into forest

Hundreds of students joined Plan it Wild and Aspetuck Land Trust to plant 1,350 native shrubs and trees to create the nine Miyawaki micro-forests on unused lawns at three schools, extending a green corridor into the city. (Source: Plan it Wild)

Further reading: Growing a Greener Future, Plan it Wild

5. Large herbivores like Yellowstone’s bison foster more diverse tree cover

Bison have recovered from the brink of extinction just over a century ago. A new study using global satellite data has shown that although tree cover is sparser where bison and elephants browse, “the diversity of the tree cover is much higher than in areas without large herbivores," says researcher Lanhui Wang, thanks to the animals' consumption of vegetation and physical disturbances. (Photo: David Schneider)

Further reading: Large herbivores such as elephants, bison and moose shown to contribute to tree diversity, Phys.org

6. Natural predation works alongside growers in California’s wine country

Rebecca Rosen, owner of Authentic Abatement with Rocky the Harris Hawk at Bouchaine Vineyards. Since bringing in Rosen and her raptors five years ago, bird damage to grape crops has decreased from 50 percent to 10 percent. (Photo: Art Takeshita)

Further reading: Once Considered Pests, Falcons, Owls and Other Predatory Birds Prove Useful to Winemakers, Wine Enthusiast

7. Sheep replace herbicides to control invasives on Governors Island

Over four summers, sheep have eat­en rough­ly 14.5 acres worth of inva­sive plants that would otherwise crowd out native species and compromise the Governors Island ecosystem’s natural het­ero­gene­ity. (Photo: Julienne Schaer, the Trust for Governors Island)

Further reading: Have Ewe Herd? There Are Sheep on Governors Island — and We Paid Them a Visit! Downtown Alliance

8. Largest-ever dam removal brings salmon back to Klamath River

Salmon returned to the Klamath River after dam removal. The river now flows freely in this area, which was formerly the Iron Gate reservoir. (Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, AP, via The Guardian)

Further reading: Salmon Make a Long-Awaited Return to the Klamath River for the First Time in 112 Years, After Largest Dam Removal in U.S., Smithsonian

9. Campuses, including Colby in Maine, are replacing lawn with native meadow

The native plantings that replaced lawn near the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center at Colby College are acculturating students to a new landscape aesthetic, in addition to supporting biodiversity and decreasing pollution. (Photo: Ashley L. Conti)

Further reading: Prairies in Progress, Colby News

10. Pocket gophers stir up mycorrhizal fungi to transform barren landscape at Mount St. Helens

Two years after the most destructive volcano eruption in American history, scientists put pocket gophers on sections of barren landscape for just one day in hopes they would stir up the soil; six years later, there were 40,000 plants on the gopher sites, while the other areas remained barren. Now, after 40 years, the positive impact of a single day of gopher activity remains evident. University of Connecticut mycologist Mia Maltz summarizes, “We cannot ignore the interdependence of all things in nature, especially the things we cannot see like microbes and fungi.” (Photo: Bob Parmenter)

Further reading: 40 Years Ago, Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto a Volcano. Today, They're Tiny Heroes. Popular Mechanics

11. Detroit restores urban meadows for birds — and people

Detroit is a migration hotspot, particularly in the fall when birds funnel through the Detroit River corridor during migration. Detroit City Bird Project — a coalition of organizations and community groups — has turned Callahan Park and other derelict public areas into meadow habitats. These areas now support struggling birds like this indigo bunting during their migratory journeys, the most hazardous life phase for these species. (Photo: Diane Cheklich, Detroit Bird Alliance)

Further reading: Spotlight on Detroit: Restoring Urban Meadows for Birds and People, U.S. Fish and Wildlife

12. Land bridge transforms Houston park experience, connecting people and wildlife

This nearly 100-acre land bridge reconnects the north and south halves of Houston’s Memorial Park, providing safe passage for humans and animals over a highway, and reestablishes native coastal prairie to enable a more resilient ecology and diverse habitat. (Landscape architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects; photo: Nick Hubbard)

Further reading: Reflections on the opening of Memorial Park’s Kinder Land Bridge and the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie, Kinder Foundation

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