Your landscaping can make a difference

Be a good steward of God's creation starting right with your own piece of it! Most churches have at least some land around their church building for which they are stewards. Even most urban churches have at least a little land - and care of this green space is even more important in an urban setting where there is so little habitat.

Resource

Good Neighbor Handbook: Tips and Tools for River-Friendly Living in the Middle Potomac Region.Although this is written for the Middle Potomac region, the concepts apply equally to New York State. Indeed, some of New York is even in the Chesapeake Watershed, and the plants native to that area are also native to our area.

Your landscaping practices can help prevent global warming

The National Wildlife Federation has developed a guide and some fact sheets concerned your landscaping and global warming.

Eliminate pesticidesmonarch

First, do no harm! Consider your use of pesticides and herbicides, especially for merely ornamental purposes. There is a lot of evidence that even the common, everyday pesticides and herbicides cause harm to people (especially children), pets, and other living things, such as birds. As stewards of God's creation, should we be using these poisons in order to have an attractive lawn?

Integrated pest management (IPM)is an option, but even this isn't necessary. As stewards of God's creation, should we be poisoning it and all the creatures (and children) that come into contact with it?

Provide habitat for other creatures

There's more info on this on the Personal Landscaping page of this website.

Eliminate invasive plants; celebrate native plants

First, find out what plants are invasive in your area. What is invasive in one area may not be invasive in another. Invasive plants are a key threat to biodiversity.

You may be surprised to find that some commonly-sold plants are invading our natural areas. And chances are, you have some of these planted on your grounds.

Plants such as Japanese barberry, Norway maple, Japanese honeysuckle, and burning bush are non-native invasive plants. These plants often spread to natural areas when birds eat the berries, and then "plant" the seeds in their droppings when they fly to natural areas.

With a little research, you can find many beautiful native plants.

TIP

Create a list of plants approved for donation. Having such a list can provide a good guide for people who would like to donate a plant as a memorial and can help prevent the awkwardness of refusing the donation of a plant that may be beautiful, but which is invasive.

For a start, avoid invasive plants. Some of the following are still being sold or are in people's gardens. Some are plain old weeds that no one would ever think of donating, but which may be on your grounds. Please don't plant them, or if you are already "blessed" with these plants, it's a good idea to remove them.

These are plants that are listed as being invasive in at least some parts of New York State:

Invasive plants in New York State
Common name Botanical name Notes

TREES

    
Norway maple  Acer platanoides*   
tree-of-heaven  Ailanthus altissima ailanthus   
Siberian crabapple  Malus baccata and hybrids   
Norway spruce  Picea abies   
Bradford pear   Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford'   
amur maples  Acer ginnala   
Russian  Elaeagnus angustifolia, E. umbellata   
black locust  Robinia pseudo-acacia   

SHRUBS

    
Japanese barberry  Berberis thunbergii*   
European barberry  Berberis vulgaris   
autumn olive  Elaeagnus umbellata   
burning-bush, winged euonymus  Euonymus alata   
Amur River privet  Ligustrum obtusifolium   
California privet  Ligustrum ovalifolium   
common privet  Ligustrum vulgare   
Maack's honeysuckle  Lonicera maackii   
honeysuckle  Lonicera morrowii*   
Tartarian honeysuckle  Lonicera tatarica*   
honeysuckle  Lonicera xylosteum   
buckthorn  Rhamnus cathartica   
alder buckthorn  Rhamnus frangula   
multiflora rose  Rosa multiflora*   
Bamboo-“running” types      
Japanese spirea  Spiraea japonica   

VINES

    
Asian bittersweet  Celastrus orbiculata   
Five-leaf akebia, chocolate vine  Akebia quinta   
Japanese honeysuckle  Lonicera japonica   
Kudzu   Pueraria montana var.lobata   
Porcelain berry   Ampelopsis brevipedunculata   
Silver lace vine  Polygonum aubertii   
Chinese, Japanese wisteria  Wisteria sinensis, W. floribunda   
black swallowwort  Vincetoxicum nigrum, Cynanchum nigrum   

PERENNIALS/ANNUALS

    
goutweed, bishop’s weed  Aegopodium podagraria   
crownvetch  Coronilla varia   
leafy spurge  Euphorbia esula   
purple loosestrife  Lythrum salicaria   
Japanese knotweed  Polygonum cuspidatum (Fallopia japonica)   
Dame's rocket  Hesperis matronalis   
periwinkle  Vinca minor   
Chinese yam  Dioscorea batatas   
Cypress spurge  Euphorbia cyparissias   
Giant hogweed  Heracleum mantegazzianum   
Lesser celandine  Ranunculus ficaria   
Mugwort  Artemisia vulgaris   
Purple loosestrife  Lythrum salicaria, L. alicaria, L. virgatum, or any variety, hybrid, or cultivar   
Swallow-worts: black and pale   Cynanchum louiseae, C. rossicum   
Tall, perennial pepperweed   Lepidium latifolium   
Garlic mustard  Alliaria petiolata   
Mile-a-minute vine  Polygonum perfoliatum   
Narrowleaf bittercress  Cardamine impatiens   

GRASSES

    
Common reed  Phragmites australis - European subspecies   
Chinese silver grass  Eulalia (Miscanthus sinensis)   
Japanese stilt grass  Microstegium vimineum   
Reed canary grass  Phalaris arundinacea   

AQUATIC

    
Brazilian, South American water-weed  Egeria densa***   
Carolina, grey fanwort  Cabomba caroliniana   
Chinese lobelia  Lobelia chinensis   
Eurasian water-milfoil  Myriophyllum spicatum , M. heterophyllum   
Frogs-bit  Hydrocharis morsus-ranae   
Hydrilla   Hydrilla verticillata   
Mud mat  Glossostigma diandrum   
Parrot-feather  Myriophyllum aquaticum, syn. proserpinacoides   
Water chestnut  Trapa natans   
Water-hyacinth  Eichhornia crassipes   
Water-lettuce  Pistia stratiotes   
Yellow iris  Iris pseudacorus   
Yellow floating-heart  Nymphoides peltata   

Your lawn

Is most of your congregation's property covered in lawn or asphalt? An easy way to eliminate a fair amount of greenhouse gases from the use of power equipment is to reduce the size of your lawn. Some lawn may be useful, but much of it is generally walked on only to mow it! Why not create a more interesting property - and one that provides for the needs of pollinators, birds, toads, and other of God's creatures - by creating a Certified Wildllife Habitat or a Monarch Waystation?

Quiet Garden

Create a Quiet Garden, and your congregation's grounds become an important spiritual resource for its members and perhaps even for the surrounding neighborhood. But please make sure that these meditation areas are beneficial not only for people, but for all of creation. In other words, create an area that uses sustainable gardening practices and provides for wildlife, too.

Congregations taking action

Here's the story ("Churches at Work") of how one church considered their land as a witness and discovered the joy of using their property as a reflection of their belief in God and their relationship to their community. This visible sign of another congregation's stewardship of God's creation can also become a beautiful place for meditation.

Here's another congregation that created a Certified Wildlife Habitat

St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, Maryland created a rain garden to provide habitat and to deal responsibly with water runoff.

Even with a small pocket of land, your congregation can role model stewardship of your church's piece of Earth, however small. It will surely inspire members of your congregation to create similar spaces in their own backyards.

FarCry - Mollio