Each year, 1% of WildYard sales goes to environmental nonprofits through 1% for the Planet. Bird Conservancy of the Rockies was the first partner we named. Wild Ones is the second.
Bird Conservancy works on birds and the land they travel across. Wild Ones works on what grows in the ground under your own habitat. Two ends of the same yard.
Who they are
Wild Ones has been at this since 1977. Their mission is one sentence long: Wild Ones promotes native landscapes through education, advocacy and collaborative action. Their vision is native plants and natural landscapes thriving in every community.
Today that runs through more than 100 local chapters across the US, a grant program approaching its thirtieth year, free garden designs anyone can download, and a certification for yards planted with wildlife in mind.
What they do
Native garden designs. Free, built by region, and paired with a directory of nurseries that carry the plants. You pick the design that fits where you live and it tells you what to plant and where. No horticulture background needed, which is the same bar we set for putting up a habitat.
Seeds for Education. The Lorrie Otto Seeds for Education grants have put native plants into schools, nature centers, libraries, tribal organizations and youth groups since 1996. Pollinator gardens, rain gardens, prairie plantings, monarch habitat, outdoor classrooms. Projects have to engage kids directly and come with a stewardship plan, so the planting is still there years later.
Certified Native Habitat. A certification for yards planted for wildlife, working toward 5,000 certified gardens. A habitat on the wall with native planting underneath it is the kind of yard that qualifies.
Wild for Monarchs. Native plants for monarch butterflies, run through the same chapter network.
Chapters. More than 100 of them. Native landscapes are a local argument as much as a botanical one, and the chapters are where that work happens, yard by yard and town by town.
Journal, webinars and Science at Home. A quarterly journal for members, the Wild Ones Presents webinar series, and at-home science anyone can join. The knowledge is the point, not a membership perk.
Why them
A bat habitat gives bats somewhere to roost. A birdhouse gives a wren somewhere to nest. But housing is only half of a habitat. The other half is food, and food comes from what grows in the yard. Native plants support the insects that birds and bats depend on. Put shelter and food together and a backyard starts working like an ecosystem instead of a lawn with decorations.
That is the idea behind everything we build. Wild Ones has spent almost fifty years teaching the planting half. We make the housing half. The partnership made itself, really.
What changes for you
At checkout, nothing. Same habitats, same handcrafted cedar. Part of every order now supports Wild Ones' education and advocacy work alongside our other 1% partners.
If you want to take your own yard further, their designs are free at nativegardendesigns.wildones.org. Pick one that fits your region and plant it near whatever you already have up, whether that is a bat habitat, an owl box, a bee house or a suet feeder.
Two things worth reading while you plan. Bats and bees as garden pollinators covers what the planting and the housing do for each other, and where to hang a bee house gets solitary bees to actually find yours. If the habitat itself is still going up, where to put a bat house in your yard settles placement first (it is easier to plant around a mounted habitat than to move one later).
What happens next
Your 1% is at work with them now. More conservation news is coming, and it lands here first.
Learn more about Wild Ones at wildones.org.
From our yard to yours,
The WildYard Team
