Naturalist and Native Gardener Calls Green Carpet Yards an Abomination
Bridgehampton-based preservation group Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt is presenting a special program “Goodbye Lawn, Hello Bio-diverse Plantings,” featuring Suzanne Ruggles, who runs The Barefoot Gardener in Westhampton, at 7 p.m. on Monday, October 14.
Ruggles, a naturalist and native gardener, will focus on the many ways to design stunning and naturally balanced landscapes that work with nature. Her approach honors the native plants that already exist on a property and, where advisable, re-vegetating with carefully selected complementary native plantings.
The talk will be held at the Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center (1061 Bridgehampton/Sag Harbor Turnpike). Admission is free and light refreshments will be served.
A woman on a mission, Ruggles wants to dissuade people from using pesticides, insecticides, and other unnatural additives to their lawns and gardens, and to encourage them to protect nature by using native grasses, flowers, and trees.
She will address the many benefits of lawns and gardens featuring native plants, including how they encourage proliferation of native animals and insects that have evolved along with them.
“Bright green carpet-like yards are an abomination,” she says. “They are possible only with the assistance of harmful chemicals that subdue the complex world of flora and fauna living in the earth beneath the grass.”
By showing people how spectacular, how peaceful, how bio-diverse, and how life-affirming native plantings can be, and by educating the public on the benefits, joys and freedom of using them, Ruggles transforms not just lawns, but the attitudes of lawn-owners toward that slice of nature they can directly control.
To learn more about this talk and Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt, contact FLPG President Dai Dayton at 631-745-0689 or visit longpondgreenbelt.org.
Find out more about “Barefoot Gardener” Suzanne Ruggles and her unique approach to gardening and landscape design, visit her website, thebarefootgardener.com (where you can link to her very robust social media presence), call 631-288-4351 or email [email protected] and make an appointment. (All photos from Barefoot Gardener Facebook page)