With many of our environmental protections, including those that protect our water quality, in jeopardy it is important for the Great Healthy Yard Project to make an impact NOW. With this in mind we will concentrate on watersheds, starting with a focus on the Mississippi River Watershed.
The Great Healthy Yard Project is important because national stream tests done in 2013 showed that our nation’s waterways are contaminated with pesticides and fertilizers. Small amounts of these chemicals can disrupt our hormonal system, and they act cumulatively. The Great Healthy Yard Project supplies the knowledge and tools we need to begin to fix this problem now by starting in our backyards and working together.
Concentrating on the Mississippi River Watershed is important because it is the largest watershed in the United States. 41 percent of the land in the US eventually drains into the Mississippi River, and 27 percent of the United States population lives on land that drains into the Mississippi. Millions of people get drinking water from the river, and how people care for it upstream matters tremendously. The river empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and pollutants that travel with it are also harming the Gulf, contributing to algae overgrowth and dead zones. Parts of 27 states are in the Mississippi River basin, and 70 towns and cities get their drinking water from it.
The ten states along the river are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Also, it courses through many conservative areas. Republicans were in the past the party of conservation. Now with this administration many environmental protections are being walked back. But we all want clean water, and if people understand how chemicals get into their drinking water and what they do to our bodies when they are there, they will not only behave more sensibly in their own yards, but push representatives from both parties to back environmental regulations that protect our water quality and our families health.

Catastrophic flooding in Houston was the result of an incomprehensible 50 inches of rain that fell in a short period of time. However, the magnitude of the flooding and level of destruction was magnified by the fact that Houston is one of only three major cities that does not have zoning laws that require storm water management.
Most other areas require no increase in stormwater runoff when they approve a building or development. Houston does not protect its wetlands, it allows them to be developed. Wetlands act like sponges to sop up water during a storm. Three quarters of the Prairie has also been developed and can no longer absorb water.
So even before Harvey Houston was experiencing serious flooding. A Texas A&M researcher said “more people die here from floods than anywhere else….and more per capita is lost here.”
WHAT CAN WE DO IN OUR COMMUNITIES?
We can maintain our yards and gardens in ways that capture storm water and return it to underground aquifers. This helps replete the aquifer, helps purify the water, and helps prevent pollutants from washing into our streams, lakes, and rivers.
This is a way we can all start now with a little step to improve our water quality and also help prevent our communities from flooding.
The next step is convincing friends and neighbors to do the same, and the third step is convincing our representatives that everyone from both parties wants clean water and wants the flood risk to their communities minimized.
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (The Great Healthy Yard Project is an affiliate) has developed a Sustainable Sites certification similar to LEED certification for sustainable building with the American Botanic Garden and The American Society of Landscape Architects that quantifies landscape sustainability.they also have Sites for Homeowners.
SOME EASY STEPS ARE:
1. Capture water running off driveways, roofs, and terraces so that it is absorbed. In areas of your yard with lots of runoff consider making a rain garden. This is simply a depression that captures the water and is planted with plants that like wet feet and will absorb it. The plants have to be suited to the soil, climate, and the amount of sun.
2. Replace paved areas with gardens or at least pervious surface like gravel where possible so that water can be absorbed.
3. Use lots of native plants that are well acclimated to your climate and soil. Once established they often require little care and will be resilient and able to absorb water. They also absorb excess nutrients that would pollute the waterways.
4. Plant trees. Trees do a phenomenal job absorbing water and excess nutrients.
5. Consider rain barrels to absorb water that comes off your roof so you can use it in your garden when you need it.
6. Don’t mow to the edge of ponds, lakes, streams and rivers. Help secure the banks and prevent erosion with long grasses or shrubs. These also add habitat for birds and other wildlife, and they absorb large amounts of water that would otherwise run off into the waterway.

I spent a very rainy morning in the back woods at my house with my dog. It made us both very happy.

While we are working on the turf by the house and in the paddocks, our spring chores have started in earnest in the woods, too. We are removing barberry and multiflora rose, two aggressive invasive species. Hopefully this will allow the Mayapples and ferns to flourish! Using weedkillers on the invasives would kill the native plants and pollute our water, so it is lots of work instead. But pulling up roots is easier when the soil is moist.
-Remove invasive species to let native plants flourish
-Don’t use weedkillers that will kill native plants and pollute our waters
-pulling up roots is easier when the soil is moist

Thank you to Catriona Tudor Erler for featuring The Great Healthy Yard Project in her wonderful article “Healthy garden, healthy lake, healthier you,” in the Smith Mountain Laker Magazine. Ms. Erler explains how their local Virginia geology causes anything that is applied to your lawn to very quickly seep into the lake or local well water. She then gives great tips to care for your yard without chemicals so they don’t wind up in the water. And her pictures (like the one here) are beautiful!!

We are happily into April rain season, and my garden and lawn are waking up. My vegetable seedlings are inside until Mother’s Day because of the possibility of frost, but my onions and garlic are already several inches high, and parsley is sprouting up after having self seeded last season. Daffodils are coming up, and while not native take little care and are beautiful.
April rains wash everything from our yards into nearby streams, lakes, and rivers, or down into our underground aquifers. As we all go back into our gardens we can renew our dedication to protecting our water quality by focusing on soil and plant health and avoiding synthetic chemicals in our yards.
This year my husband and I are embarking on a renovation of our garden with native plants, which is really exciting. So far still in the planning stage, we are chomping at the bit to pull out the boxwood in front of our house. We have been fortunate (so far) not to be struck by boxwood blight. Blight causes rapid defoliation and is very contagious. But we get breakage from heavy snow and ice and I am not good at protecting our boxwood with burlap or running out and clearing all of the branches. We have a lot of boxwood and I just don’t want to spend that much time any more. Don’t misunderstand, there is much that I love about boxwood. I love the structure, and I love that they are the one thing deer don’t touch. I have used them to enclose native plants that can still look pretty even when left to be wildly unruly because of the framing boxwood. But I will be very happy to have a change. The focus on native plants is exciting to us, both because it will support our birds and insects, but also because it will have an updated and very American look.
The first task here this spring is our turf. As a cool weather crop, it is very happy even though there was snow on the ground only a week or two ago. I overseeded with grass seed to outcompete weed seeds that germinate in the spring. I also sent out soil tests.
We also had an area between our riding ring fence and our deer fence that is sloped and became overwhelmed by invasive weeds. Before everything started growing again my husband cut these back. We are now trying to decide weather we will cover the area with tarps for a year or try to seed it and keep cutting back the weeds.
Staying one step ahead often precludes problems serious enough to make us even want to use chemicals.
– Think about overseeding your lawn to outcompete weed seeds.
– Send a soil test if you are having problems or if you haven’t done one in a long time to head off problems.
– If your soil test shows that you need to replace a nutrient in your soil, remember that organic supplements need active soil bacteria to work well, so wait until it is at least 65 degrees at night to apply.

Thank you to Westchester County Legislator Francis Corcoran and Rob Astorino, Westchester County Executive, for awarding The Great Healthy Yard Project the Westchester County Soil and Water Conservation Award. Hopefully this will make more people aware of the project and informed that the choices they make in their yards can make a big difference in our water quality. This is so important in Westchester NY where the northern part of the county stewards the New York City Croton Watershed, and the southern part of the County stewards the Long Island Sound Watershed. Much of the county is also in the watershed for the Hudson River. Not using synthetic chemicals on our yards and not disposing of pharmaceuticals down the drain keeps these chemicals our of our waterways, out of our drinking water, and out of our fish.

Thank you Audubon NY for the wonderful review of The Great Healthy Yard Project! The same things that harm birds harm our children and ourselves, so protecting our birds is also protecting our families. First step: stop using synthetic pesticides, weedkillers and fertilizers in your yard and garden so they don’t wind up on your children or pets or in your drinking water. Next step, try Audubon’s native plant data base to help you choose native plants that will attract birds in your area to your yard and nourish them. These native plants don’t need chemicals to thrive.
And since water is a shared resource it is so important to get your friends and neighbors to stop using chemicals and start using native plants, too.

The EPA has scheduled public meetings about updating its classification of the carcinogenic potential (no mention of endocrine disruption) of glyphosate for October 18th to 21st in Washington DC.
2002 was the first time the US Geologic Survey looked for glyphosate and its biologically active breakdown product AMPA in streams. Glyphosate was found in 36% of streams tested and AMPA was found in 69%. But this is not our only exposure to this herbicide. It is everywhere.
Tests in 2014 by scientists from Boston University and Abraxis labs found that 45% of samples of organic honey and 62% of conventional honey had glyphosate. Glyphosate isn’t used on beehives or honey. It gets into honey because bees forage in areas where it has been used.
An article in the Huffington Post by Carey Gillam reveals that the FDA was pressured into testing food for glyphosate this year. He showed emails that it has had trouble locating honey without glyphosate that is introduced by the bees, not the bee keepers. He said both the FDA and USDA have found glyphosate widely distributed in basic foods and even processed foods.
It is not just bees. Studies in Germany found glyphosate in the blood of most people tested.
While the EPA has not come to a final decision on the classification of glyphosate, in a paper they released September 12th they said they do not believe glyphosate is carcinogenic in amounts that people are exposed to. This position differs from the International Agency for Research on Cancer and considers it a probable carcinogen.
While industry can affect regulation, we can all use common sense in our backyards and stop using glyphosate and other synthetic chemicals that we know can harm us, especially because there are other good choices.

Mid Atlantic states are seeing the worst of rising sea levels because the Gulf Stream is shifting northward bringing higher temperatures and higher sea levels. The rising ocean water is progressing inland and killing trees that line the coasts, leaving standing dead forests according to Climate Central. This includes cedars dying along the Bass River in New Jersey and marshes overtaking forests on Virginia’s Goodwin Island. As these trees die and salt water encroaches on fresh water marshes we loose habitat for birds and forest animals. We also loose the carbon capturing and water filtering the trees would provide.
This is a good reason to plant more trees in our backyards, schools, and streets. Especially native trees that support our birds and wildlife.
To find trees native to your area use the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Native Plant data base.

Today Partners in Flight released their 2016 Landlord Conservation Plan.150 partner organizations including the National Audubon Society worked on this project. The thrust of the project is that climate change, habitat destruction, and environmental degradation have brought us to a tipping point. Without these problems they estimate we would have 1.5 billion more birds in the skies. But the report is not doom and gloom, it is a call to action. “We know that when we use the best science to develop conservation plans, and commit to the implementation of those plans, we can make a difference. Thriving populations of Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, and Wild Turkeys today are a testament to what we can do if we work together.”
How we take care of our yards matters a lot to our water quality, our families health, and our birds. They are more vulnerable, but what is bad for them is bad for us. It is easy for us to make a big difference if we all work together. Pledge to take care of your yard without synthetic pesticides, weedkillers, and fertilizers, and not to flush pharmaceuticals down the drain. Protect our children and our birds. And get your friends and neighbors to pledge, too.