A survey of American residential garden conservation programs

Abstract Residential gardens constitute a large percentage of the greenspace in urbanized areas. In aggregate, these gardens can provide a significant amount of habitat if they are managed with the aim of supporting wildlife. Recognizing this, there has been an increase in the number of programs that seek to guide homeowners to reform their landscaping practices to create habitat within their yard. These programs offer certification to participants once they have implemented the suggested criteria, which usually consist of installing native plants, providing habitat elements, and eliminating practices that degrade habitat. We used systematic Google searches to identify 115 such residential garden conservation programs in the United States, with the intention of determining how they differ or are the same across their aims, affiliations, certification criteria, and rigor. Results indicate that programs vary greatly across these measures, making collective evaluation of programs to advance the field of residential conservation difficult. Further, the programs vary in how they connect to enrollees and the community through their social media usage, language on yards signs that are awarded with certification, and support they provide through the certification process. These programs may have the potential to engage a substantial number of homeowners and increase urban habitat in the process, but at this juncture more investigations into their conservation outcomes and their interactions with potential and current enrollees are warranted. We follow our analysis with a self-assessment for managers to consider as they design and improve their program’s conservation potential and outreach.