Natural gardening turns yard into wildlife haven
(Excerpted from an article by Levi J. Long of the Seattle Times)

In Leila and Dale Martin’s back yard, moss grows wild on a toolshed roof. Old tree stumps, scattered throughout the yard, hold plants tumbling down aged trunks. Mason bees ramble up the southern wall of their Bellevue home.

Martin, whose yard encompasses all things Northwestern wild, has been using natural gardening techniques since the mid-1950s, long before campaigns urging environmentally friendly yard care were created. She has taken up the use of natural methods to keep her garden a pesticide- and chemical-free haven for herself and for birds who’ve flocked to herself and for birds who’ve flocked to plants such as garden sage and rosemary her yard.

For Martin, using native plants and environmentally friendly gardening techniques was a part of her childhood. Growing up in rural Bellevue during the Depression years of the 1930s, she learned to use available materials.

She said birds helped plant the trees lining her property.

“They dropped the seeds here and there, and I let them at it. There’s no design work, it just sort of happened,” she said.

Instead of using weed killers, she pulls weeds by hand. Instead of a gas-operated mower, she uses an electric mulcher to reduce air pollution.

To save water, she sets out a bucket in her yard to collect rainwater and seeks out drought-tolerant plants — such as the salal evergreen shrub and Mediterranean plants such as garden sage and rosemary — to reduce water use.

“There’s a misconception that it rains all the time here, but it’s still important to conserve as much water as possible,” she said.

Seattle Public Utilities estimates that lawn watering accounts for more than 40 percent of summer water use.

The Martins’ yard provides one of the best examples of how natural yard care can work and the positive impact it can have on a community.

For Martin, it means she can continue to listen to the songs of the sparrows, wrens and robins that perch in her yard.

“This is pretty much my sanctuary, as it is theirs,” she said.