You might have heard the term rewilding, maybe because someone you know is planting a pollinator-friendly garden or spending their weekends pulling vines off their trees or just not mowing anymore. What does it really mean, though?
“Basically, it’s the process of restoring ecosystems and biodiversity to areas so they are returned to their original, natural state before humans disturbed it,” says Sandra Wilson, a master gardener and coordinator of the UConn Fairfield County Master Gardener Coordinator.Though it originally applied to large tracts of land, the term is increasingly popular among home gardeners. “It’s part of restoration ecology,” says Wilson, “which aims to preserve and restore the balance of nature.” This balance is becoming increasingly fragile because of habitat loss, climate change, development, and more.
So, how does rewilding work for the home gardener? “You can’t necessarily do full-scale rewilding in a two-acre yard,” says Geordie Elkins, director of Highstead, a regional conservation and ecological stewardship nonprofit based in Redding. “But you can adopt that same ethic of allowing natural processes to take place, and allowing your yard to grow into an environment that’s more hospitable for wildlife if it weren’t a manicured suburban yard.” More natives and healthier soil result in more pollinators. More pollinators can mean more flowers, and so on up the ecosystem.
It might sound like a big move, away from the reliable world of green lawns and tidy (but aggressively invasive) English ivy to something messier and less predictable, but ultimately kinder and more in sync with our local environment. If you decide to take it on, there will be a period of transition where, not unlike a bad haircut, you’ll have to let your garden grow in and make peace with weeds, and maybe some side-eye from the neighbors. “I advise people to stop doing anything to their yard for six months to a year, and see what comes up,” says Elkins. Depending on how healthy the soil still is, there might still be some native seeds hibernating in your topsoil. “You might have something you can work with,” says Elkins. “Or you might not.”
Then comes the work. Invasives (meaning non-native plants that have muscled their way into the existing environment) have to go. Native plants need to come in to start the rebalancing. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” says Wilson. “When you take something out, you have to put something in or you’re just back to where you began.”
What does a rewilded yard look like? For one thing, it echoes the local wild areas. “In the landscape trade, most plants come from Oregon or Tennessee,” says Elkins, and many yards end up with a generic “I’m in a temperate zone somewhere in the US” look. “But when you start to grow local plants from that region, you begin to get a regional flavor and aesthetic.”
No discussion of gardening in Connecticut is complete without tick talk. But a rewilded yard is not an open invitation to everyone’s most-hated insect. You can create a tick-resistant zone around your house or in a sunny, dry part of the yard, suggests Elkins, with a more traditional mowed area, while allowing deeper parts of the property to become meadows or shadier leafier environments that are friendlier to local plants and wildlife. And, of course, exercise the usual precautions that you would anywhere else: pants tucked in, long sleeves, and a thorough tick check. You know the drill.
As for the cost of rewilding, Elkins notes it doesn’t have to be any more expensive than the usual yard upkeep, especially once the garden has hit an equilibrium where invasives are more or less under control, pollinators are coming back, and a natural balance is starting to emerge. “It can be intensive at first,” he says, “but if you think about someone coming every week to cut turfgrass, that’s a lot of time and money. A better way to think about it is that you’re reallocating your time and resources.”
And the payoff, no matter how much you do, can be amazing. Take a look at the gardens along Main Street in Ridgefield where, thanks to a years-long project spearheaded by Pollinator Pathway (founded in Wilton and now a nationwide organization), every plot is planted with blooming, fragrant, pollinator-friendly local plants.
Want gardening guidance?
If you’re just getting started or looking to expand your knowledge, you can email FairfieldMasterGardeners@uconn.edu or check out Pollinator Pathway (pollinator-pathway.org) to learn more about identifying invasives, bringing in native plants, and other simple steps for your backyard.
