When we create climate resilient, sustainable landscapes, the landscapes give back, providing natural benefits that are essential to daily life, like cleaning the air and water, and maintaining soil fertility. Generally speaking, we have underestimated or even ignored their value when making decisions that affect the land, but they are the key to creating home gardens that meet our needs without compromising the ability of our kids and grandkids to meet theirs. Among the many natural benefits of sustainable landscapes are:

Cleaner air and water: Plants, through photosynthesis, provide us with the oxygen we breathe. Plants and organisms in the soil remove and break down pollutones, including those that trigger asthma and other illnesses.

Cooler towns and cities: Trees and other plants provide cooling shade and via the carbon cycle remove carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

Food, medicine, wood and other products: Plants transform carbon dioxide into food, life-saving medicines, wood, and countless other products.

Wildlife habitat and biological diversity: Plants fuel the dazzling diversity of life on this planet, from the blue whale, which can weigh 150 tons, to the Cuban bee hummingbird, which weighs one-seventeenth of an ounce.

Pollination: Bees, birds, bats, and other animals pollinate crops.

Natural water storage and flood control: Stormwater is absorbed by plants or slowly trickles through the soil and into underground reservoirs called aquifers, preserving the land’s natural water cycle or hydrology.

Waste decomposition and soil fertility: The nitrogen cycle transforms wastes into the nutrients necessary for sustaining life.

Erosion and sediment control: Vegetation helps maintain soil structure and fertility and prevents erosion and pollution.

Human health and well-being: Our connection to nature sustains us physically and mentally.