This class is aimed at giving you information about planting and installation, getting plants established, and maintaining landscape plants in our region.

As with all our classes and content, this class aims at teaching how to accomplish these goals while supporting wildlife. So many landscape and gardening techniques are anti-nature, meaning that they prioritize human expectations (which are often cosmetic)over meeting the needs of the plant. So much of what people do to grow plants isn't even good for the plants. People tend to see plants as commodities to purchase and place in the yard like furniture, as if the plant wasn't a living thing with needs, or as if it wasn't going to change.

Plants are living creatures that evolved with a cast of characters (we call this ecology). They don't exist in isolation, but are dependent on the other organisms that they evolved with for thousands or millions of years. They developed flowers that perfectly fit the pollinators that have been around them, ensuring the continuation of their species. They depend on these organisms and the organisms depend on them. Often we are told that nature is about survival of the fittest, but this isn't an accurate depiction of nature, and that view has long been debunked by science. Nature is about survival of the cooperative--not just within a species, but between species. Nature is a network of individual organisms that have been shaped by each others' existence.

When you plant a landscape, we encourage you to think about this. Don't just put individual plants in the ground. Install little ecosystems. As you put plants in the ground, the fauna will arrive. When you make your landscape, don't *just* install plants. Allow leaf debris to accumulate. Make sure you have piles of rocks or bricks for lizards to overwinter in. Maybe reserve a part of your yard for a small area that nobody walks in, and is only reachable by insects and animals. Create habitat for birds to find safety from feral or domestic cats. Build a safe space in your yard for the wildlife that is trying so hard to exist in our urban, suburban, and even rural communities. When you look at your yard, don't think "I own this", think "this little plot is returned to planet Earth".