The Trouble With Neighbors

 As we embark on our mission to change the world through our landscaping, we cannot ignore the impact our neighbors will have on our success.  After all, the natural world does not respect the presence of property lines  and what we find our landscapes surrounded by is what the rest of the natural world actually sees.

When I lived in Seminole with my ex-wife, migratory birds found our landscape and very rarely could be seen beyond the property lines of our typical residential lot.  The exceptions were the ground-foraging species - the thrushes, ovenbirds, worm-eating warblers, and the water thrushes.  Our neighbors to the west also had a cluster of mature live oaks adjacent to our property-line fence and between us, we had a significant expanse of open understory covered by leaf litter.  Each year during migration all of these birds visited and foraged across both sides of our fence.  I am convinced that, without their extra habitat, we would have been ignored completely.

I started this blog with the intent of documenting my success after my move to Holiday.  I am in a very different place here than I was in Seminole.  Most noticeable is the fact that most of my neighhbors have no seeming interest in their landscapes.  A high percentage have given up on plants completely and covered their property in gravel.  Almost all of the others have some iteration of turf and weeds that they mow on a regular basis.  When I began planting my yard with natives with the express purpose of creating habitat for birds and pollinators I was an island in a sea devoid of habitat.  

After all these years, I find that being a tiny island, like I am, has made a significant difference in the diversity of pollinating insects but not much change in the diversity of birds.  It will seemingly take a lot longer for the birds to find me - both residents and migrants.  The stark difference between my landscape in Seminole and my present one is the diversity of migratory songbirds.  I get yellow-rumped and palm warblers, but rarely anything else.  In Seminole, I would document a same basic cavalcade of migrants each year - sometimnes as many as 35 species of wood warblers, and nearly every possible bunting, grosbeak, tanager, thrush and oriole.  These have not found me yet though I am still about the same distance from the Gulf of Mexico and only abut 15 miles further north.  It reinforces my belief that context is perhaps even more important than the individual landscape itself.

Landscapes designed for other living things that go against what others may see as normal also have to have the understanding of our neighbors - even if they do not join in on redesigning their own.  Nontraditional plantings will always incite the interest of neighbors.  Sometimes for the good and sometimes not.  It's an opportunity to educate and sometimes an exercize in futility.  Over the past 4-5 months, I have had very little time to spend in my landscape and have been away most weekend hours.  I came home two weekends ago to find that my new neighbor had taken it upon himself to emasculate two of my trees that provided a buffer along our property line.  Besides the fact that he obviously had never been taught the correct way to prune a plant, he cut away nearly a decade of habitat value that may eventually heal, but maybe not.  I've since become friends with him and we've reached an understanding through this act but the episode has shown me, once more, that we are all connected across property lines when we set out to create a living landscape and it takes a village to succeed - at least an understanding between us. As you plan and plant try to engage your neighbors so that they understand what you're trying to accomplish by going against the accepted model.  Your success will hinge, at least in part, on your success in garnering support from them.