Native Gardens in New Housing Developments: Scaling Biodiversity Benefits - with Tim Sallin [Outside Collab]

We have a biodiversity crisis worldwide. Our challenge is to to show people just how much they can actually contribute to these global issues at a very local level, in a way that is fun and easy and attainable, but also very meaningful. There's over 40 million acres of turf grass in the United States. Even if your own garden is small, it matters because what we've seen is that you bring one native plant species to a single garden, and before long, and I'm talking hours, not days.

You'll see the pollinators. They just somehow find that plant and they show up in your garden. So it is a really powerful thing that people can do. It is a pleasure to share this chat that I had with Tim Sutherland about the work happening across Florida to help shift garden habitats at scale, in support of biodiversity through the untapped potential of native plants.

The outside Co-Lab brings together many minds with an aim to reshape Florida's landscapes in response to growing pressures from what is huge population growth and the impacts that this all has on resources, community and climate. It is a unique context, but with insights here that could be relevant to so many of us worldwide. I'm Helen Fisher. This is we are carbon.

And throughout season four, you'll find new weekly conversations as we keep digging deeper and explore what it means to step into regenerative actions within our own place, creating health and vitality for ourselves, our community, and the natural world around us, and really igniting a new zest for life. Be sure to subscribe to keep up to date and check the description for more opportunities for becoming involved. Enjoy the conversation. Hi Tim. Thank you so much for joining us.

If you'd like to kick us off with a quick introduction to yourself, I'll share. Thank you, Helen, for having me. It's really great to chat with you and, to learn more about what people are doing in other parts of the world to promote sustainable living, sustainable landscapes and sustainable development, which is something that I'm very passionate about. I live in Florida and, I work in agriculture. I am, part of a family business.

We operate at, citrus farms, and we also have a ornamental landscape business and nursery. So we we grow a lot of plants, and, we provide landscape services here in Florida, where we have a lot of population growth. So there's over a thousand people who move to Florida every day. And that kind of population growth requires a lot of new housing and new construction. So there's a big demand for nursery products and landscaping, which is a positive for our business.

But on the other hand, there's also a lot of pressure on our natural resources. And a lot of people may not know, but Florida is truly one of the, richest places on Earth when it comes to biodiversity. It's, a biodiversity hotspot. It has over 2500 native plant species that are endemic to Florida, which means they only exist here. And, and some of the neighboring, coastal states. So we're we're facing a lot of pressure from growth and development, which does, threaten, some of these ecosystems.

We also have very fragile, sandy soils. So it's a vulnerable place. And my passion has been to look at how we can contribute in a positive way through the work that we do in the ornamental landscape and also agriculture, farming in Florida. And it turns out there's a lot that that that can be done to protect our natural resources just by landscaping a little bit differently, utilizing more native plants and seeking to, minimize or eliminate pesticides and fertilizers and, irrigation water.

So that's what we've been up to. Doing it, for ourselves on our farms, but also doing it with our clients. And more importantly, we've created a collaborative that draws on all of the passion and experience of a lot of different people in Florida who want to see the same thing. So we built a nonprofit organization called The Outside Sustainable Landscapes Collaborative.

And over the past six years, this group has been pretty effective at promoting the adoption of sustainable landscape practices throughout Florida. And we're starting to see a shift in the paradigm where large developers and homebuilders are beginning to embrace this notion that we can and should landscape differently to promote a healthier environment for people. Beautiful.

It's really it is so exciting to speak with you because there are such patterns that relate wherever we are in the world, and yet there's clearly a very distinct situation that is relevant relative to you. And these projects in Florida. And to hear that this a collaboration between people with that focus on those specific ecosystems, that's very exciting. I think it's, it's fairly unique.

And I think what's also very unique about what you're doing is moving that focus from not just on the agricultural side of things, which we always kind of can focus on how farming gives us so many opportunities to regenerate ecosystems and work in greater harmony with nature. But you're moving that also into landscapes that are beyond the farm. And these, I assume when you say landscaping, we're talking in a lot of terms about people's gardens. We are. That's the main.

The main thrust of the, construction industry in Florida is to build homes for people, because so many people are moving here every day and they need a place to live. So, we, we build new housing communities. Typically they they can be very dense. But there's still single family, residential homes. And like, in Europe, there's a lot of multifamily housing. It's very, very urban. Here it's more suburban land use patterns, which is not a very efficient, use of resources.

But nevertheless, all of these homes are being built and they have to be landscaped. They typically are landscaped with turf grasses. And in Florida, turf grasses are not native and they don't they don't thrive very they don't thrive in our native soils. I have family in Normandy, France, and over their turf grasses. They're great because it rains all the time and the soil is really rich.

And it's it doesn't require a lot of input, but to maintain a green lawn in Florida requires a tremendous amount of inputs. A lot of and then a lot of toxic, pesticides, too, that people are spraying around their homes. They don't really realize that, but that's the current pattern. They plant a lot of turf grasses and then a few exotic shrubs for hedges and a little bit of, color.

But, it turns out being a biodiversity desert because none of these plants, host any of our native pollinators or native wildlife. So we end up with a pretty sterile, lifeless landscape. And, so we are looking at, changing that, but as you say, it is interesting to learn on the farm because we are also a citrus, grower. And we, we farm, commercial citrus groves where, and, people may have enjoyed Florida fresh grapefruit in Europe, and other parts of the world.

So it may have come from one of our groves, for example. But those crops also we are learning how to farm regenerative lead, to utilize compost and cover crops and minimize and reduce herbicides and pesticides in order to to build up the soil biology and to create a more, regenerative system and also a system where the plants are supported by the soil, the soil activity.

And that's important for us in Florida because we're dealing with a pretty terrible disease that's, affecting the citrus trees. It's called, citrus greening or B, and so our trees are sick and, and, we believe that the reason they, they succumb to the disease is because the soils were impoverished in the first place from our, our traditional farming practices or not our traditional, but our most recent farming practices, which, which relied a lot on on chemical inputs.

So, so we've started to make that pivot on the farming side, and we're learning a lot there that is directly applicable and translates to the home garden. So we can use the same composting practices. We can use you know, some of the ideas that we learn from cover cropping, we can incorporate that into ground cover alternatives to turf grass. And, these these are some ways that we're, you know, we're we're looking at different things that can be done in Florida.

And, I'm pleased to report that we're seeing some success. And I think there's there's hope that we'll be able to introduce a much more regenerative approach to, to both landscape and agriculture here. It's really lovely at recognizing that the impact on the citrus crop of poor soil health, it really kind of feels like it starts there. That connection of the ecosystem functioning, sustaining itself, not being there to actually look after the the plants and those crops there.

Even if we're outside of Florida, we enjoy we enjoy consuming them. So it there's many, many things weaving through.

But I, I'm also struck by the idea of, how out of place the turf is in a landscape such as Florida in in your climate, where even here in the UK, where we do not struggle to grow the turf, we have plenty of rain to to have it all lush and thriving, but certainly still that that sense that we're fighting to keep it into some kind of pretty picture of a clean and crisp and clear frontage to the home that's just this garden of greenery.

And then the beautiful, colorful flowers surrounding it in the border. And of course, even here to do that, we are dependent upon spraying chemicals and trying to fertilize it in ways that are out of balance with with the natural world. So it's interesting that that happens here, but I'm imagining it's it's a really much more impactful challenge over in a landscape that that just really isn't wanting to grow that, that turf. So yeah, very interesting indeed.

I'd like to explore that relationship a little bit because there's

there's a big focus, I feel, in the world, but particularly in this season of the podcast, a focus around what it means to build community, how community can support us and help us. And it's there's never a really straightforward answer to that. It's so unique and it's just the relationship and the dynamics that happens to happen in the environments, the places that that we, fall upon in this particular situation.

You are kind of nurturing and building a sense of community through the fact that the the homes are being managed by one provider. Is that is that kind of the way it is? If somebody buys the home in this particular set up and they're then part of a a requirement to manage the land in the way that that that community is holding to.

Share in Florida, there are a lot of new communities that that that sprout like mushrooms after a rain, because, again, the number of people moving to Florida and all of this new housing developments. So there are, legal, frameworks for these new, communities where, they have to get zoning from the municipalities and then they can create a homeowner's association or some type of quasi governmental jurisdiction to manage the covenants and the regulations within that housing community.

Some of these communities are 300 homes and some of them can be 30,000 homes. So a varying different size. And the developers and planners and architects have always, you know, wanted to create a true sense of place, a true sense of community where people would come and live and feel like they're in, in a, in a, in a community and not just another subdivision. But truly, that goal has been elusive.

And, a lot of, a lot of, developers fail to achieve that because they end up with a very cookie cutter approach. These are, you know, production homes with very, template standardized architecture and also standardized landscaping. And so there's a little bit of, soul looseness to these communities. In the end, they all look the same. And, there haven't been any ways that to really create a sense of place.

And we are finding that by landscaping with native plants and especially when we can identify the eco tones that are appropriate for that specific place, because Florida is very diverse, we have many, many different ecosystems, coastal ecosystems. We have, pine flatwoods, we have sandhill ecosystems, we have the Everglades. So depending on where you are in Florida, the native flora can, help to, to ground that community in an authentic sense of place and belonging.

And then you also attract life to the garden. And suddenly the pollinators, the butterflies, the songbirds start to become, presence. And it seems to be, I think, a way that we can take, these, these cookie cutter, new home communities and infuse a little bit of soul and authenticity to them.

But it's true that it's been a little bit of a struggle at first to to help the, residents, the homeowners who are moving in, understand what it is that they, they are inheriting in terms of this new landscape, because Florida has a, there's a an image in people's mind that Florida is palm trees and green grass, and which is sadly not not truly the case. If you go into any Florida wild ecosystem, you're not going to see that. You're going to see all kinds of things, but you won't see that.

But anyhow, people are moving from other parts of the country, other parts of the world. And so they arrive in Florida and they're looking for their green grass and are two palm trees.

So we have to do a little bit of education to explain to them why it's important in Florida to landscape in this way, how they're contributing in a meaningful way to some of our challenges with natural resources and how their home, their garden really does make a difference to biodiversity, to water quality and other things that they can feel connected to and feel as though they are part of the solution. So that that's a process of education.

In fact, that was one of the reasons that we connected. Because I had I had really appreciated your animations. And it's it's important for us to find tools that connect with people emotionally that help them, understand their role in ecology, the part that they play, because there's a little bit of a lack of awareness sometimes, and that needs to be overcome. So, yes, community building is important.

And I'm hopeful that by introducing life back into the garden and connecting people with nature in a very meaningful way, right out outside their front door, that we can inspire, a greater sense of of placemaking. It's really interesting to hear how, there is development there at a policy level. The as, as it always kind of tends to be the case. It's too cookie, cookie, cookie cutter, and it's just not reaching into the realms of what's required for those real benefits.

So in terms of the work that you are hands on with and the communities

that you're connected to, what kind of size of community are you engaging with? So, we as, as a, as a business, we have been focusing on the larger communities. And it turns out that those are also, it seems, the most interested and the most likely to adopt a new approach to landscaping. So we have a community right now that will eventually, have 30,000 new homes. They're just getting started. There may be a thousand homes built so far.

And in addition to the homes, though, there will be schools. There will be, grocery stores, there will be offices and other kind of, uses that support that, that overall community development. But the reason why these, these large projects are paying attention is that they have a multi-decade, timeline to complete their project. In some cases, it could be 30 to 50 years before the entire project is is built out.

So their planners have to think long term about the availability of resources and specifically water. And, in Florida, we we have water, shortages. And so when a developer knows I have the I have authorization to build 30,000 homes. But at the rate that we are using water for landscaping, I only have enough water capacity to build 20,000 homes. So now the equation becomes quite, direct.

They see that if they can reduce the amount of water applied on the landscape, they can, build more homes, which for them is important to their, their profitability. So, it turns out that it turns out that in Florida, over 60% of our water use goes towards irrigating landscapes. And that's a pretty shocking number when you think about it. And and I've seen it higher than that in certain areas, where the landscaping is particularly inefficient, where the soils are very, porous.

At any rate, that's, that's the low hanging fruit. To save water is to simply, reduce the amount of water that we use in our landscapes. And it turns out that native plants have evolved for millions of years to thrive in our, climate and to thrive on the rainfall alone. So they don't require, as much water. In fact, we've shown with some university partners we've done research and a conventional Florida landscape.

The pretty green grass and the palm trees and the exotic plants uses 60in of water per year. So if you can imagine 60in, I guess, centimeters, or would that be 60 like five feet? So I don't know, 2.75m. But the, the native landscapes are using 15in. So that is a very significant reduction in water. And so that's why we have traction with the larger community developers, because they understand that this is important to their their long term success.

It's it's all, really highlighting that we're still at a place where the evolution forward is going to be motivated by finance. And it's useful, I think, to recognize where this ties into it, because we often think that there isn't a financial benefit, to, to supporting nature. It's going to be less productive. But actually there's always or nearly always a very demonstrated able profitability factor. And so it's interesting how this is in this particular situation.

It's about the irrigation in water and huge, huge numbers, very, very big percentages

that the size that you're talking actually it sort of sounds like a small city in, in my, in my view of, of the scale, I. Think it will be 100,000 people living there. And that's this is, that's Florida, you know, and they're communities like this, not just one. There are many communities of this scale in Florida that are happening at the same time to accommodate all of this, this influx. The people who are coming to Florida, they're coming here for natural resources.

They're coming here for the sunshine and the beaches and the springs and, you know, the Florida, the Florida lifestyle, which is dependent on the health and functioning of our underlying ecosystems. So if we don't focus on how to develop more sustainably, it will it will crash. We will there will be a reckoning. And we've seen issues already.

We have major algal blooms and red tides, which when the, the, the fertilizers from our farms and our landscapes runoff into the surface waters and they go into our estuaries and our bays, we have these explosion of algaes and, nitrification of our waters and fish kills, which you may of you may have read about it in Europe, because I think that sometimes it makes the news on a global scale, and that threatens tourism, that threatens the, business economy.

And so I think our policymakers are starting to understand. But when it comes to, to, to leading change for, a more sustainable future, it's very important to focus on, on profitability because you're right, we can we can invest in alternative models that are better for our environment, that are also better for the people and the economies that are involved. We just have to think about how to meet the needs of all of the stakeholders.

We can't just focus on this is better from an environmental standpoint. It also has to be better from a cost standpoint as it be more beautiful, easier to maintain, easier to easier to create, as well as as as being better environmentally. And then we can achieve all of those things. The adoption will be very, very quick. And that's been our focus is to make sure that we we listen to what the developers are saying and what the homebuilders are saying and what the municipalities are saying.

So that we can try to address

their objections and address their goals in the new model, so that when we propose an alternative model to landscaping, they can see that they've been heard and that their objectives are being addressed. I think that's a really good time to ask you in terms of the home gnome homeowners, what are they saying when when they have to take on these, new approaches to their landscaping? What's the feedback that you get from them? So it's varied, of course.

You know, we have the homeowners who are like, where's my grass? Where's my turf? And, those are great conversation starters. We have a lot of homeowners who say, hey, we love what you guys are about. We love, you know, this approach and and being, you know, part of a neighborhood that is really doing something different for the environment. But we would like to, you know, more resources, like how do we buy the native plants and where can we get pine straw for our mulch?

And are there any service providers who can help us take care of this garden? So it's it's been a variety. I think we get very few people who who say we don't care about the environment, we don't care about any of this. We just want our old landscape back. There may be 5% like that.

Most people are very supportive of the overall mission, and they want more information and more support, for these landscapes to be, more convenient and more successful and I understand that because, you know, we are still you we're still at the very early stages of deploying these types of landscapes at scale. So understandably, in the first few neighborhoods, there's been a learning curve. And there are things that, you know, were not executed to the potential.

And so I think, you know, we're just getting better as we gain experience. And I think the residents and homeowners, they just want to know that they're going to be supported in these landscapes will be successful. Yeah. That's that's good. How if I was a homeowner, what expectations would be on me with regards to how I manage the landscape?

So in, in this particular community and I think we'll see in, in others as well, there are there are standards that the homeowners have to comply with, including landscape, standards. So these standards will include things like must 75% of the plant species in the garden must be native species. There can be no more than 20, 20% of the, landscape area in turf grass.

All of the plant species, native and non-native and turf grass species must be from an approved plant list, which is part of the, the standards document. So these types of things are the responsibility of the homeowner to, to stay in compliance with. So if they choose to do modifications to their home after they purchase it or modifications to their landscapes, they would be required to submit, a, request to the review board. And get it approved and, and stay within the standards.

They're also responsible for, for taking care of their gardens because, the home builder and the community doesn't offer that as a, as a service. So they have options to either do it themselves or they can hire a company to do that. In some cases, they may even hire our company. And we work with a number of the residents, to help maintain their gardens.

So it's a big emphasis on the value of native species and helping people to ensure that it's practical that they can, support, grow, look after these native species. Do people tend to have particular, aversions? Other people that feel quite hostile and against, well, what they might describe as weeds. Or do you find that there's, there's more love? Because they're recognizing the biodiversity.

So some people are very passionate about the biodiversity and natives and they they do their research and then they want to find out how they can get more, plants to add to their garden to attract different types of pollinators. So we have we have that camp. We have the camp. Who is, you know, very grumpy and against, most people are in the middle and,

they the native species in Florida can be, maintained to a high standard of, the esthetic beauty. But it requires a little bit of, of know how in the proper plant selection. So that has been one of our focus is to, to really identify which plants provide year round color so that there's always something blooming in the garden. Also, which plants are easier to maintain, more resilient. And can provide a, a more manicured look that people are expecting. So we actually did some research plots.

We partnered with, The Nature Conservancy and the University of Florida and the University of Central Florida, and at this 30,000, unit project, when they first got started, we created research plots. So there were 16 plots, which were exact replicas. And, each plot had 27 different species of native plants.

And the that we had that we had planted and, and we, half the plots had compost, half didn't, half of them were on a, regular irrigation regimen, and the other half were on an as needed irrigation. And then we did all types of studies in terms of, you know, plant survivorship, plant vigor, plant health, bloom count, bloom size. We did pollinator counts, plant pollinator associations. We also did a arthropod study. And that that that research went on for three years.

And the idea was to learn as much as we can about which of these plants are going to perform the best, because we want to curate, the best species to achieve the types of goals that that the homeowners will have in a community. So even though we have 2500 native plants in Florida, not all of them are suitable for for a residential landscape.

And this is the work that's ongoing, which is why at the beginning, you know, we are not as we're not going to be as successful as we possibly can be because we need that experience. We need to grow into this. But, you know, that's been going on now for some time. And and we're starting to really learn a lot. And I think we have the ability to deliver landscapes that the residents are going to love. It is it's it's definitely, an expansive learning journey.

And when you're talking at this kind of scale and this level of investment of research, it can be as impactful as deciding what food we we eat and the impact that that has on the agricultural landscape. This is this is a big impact to the environment and our place.

And I I'm really grateful you brought up that we did connect because you saw one of the animations that I created, and this kind of is somewhere where I think we can kind of continue to engage with one another, is learning how we engage the audience with the value of native species. And it's it's diverse and it's unique to your situation and the different, parts of the climate, the different parts of the globe that we're in.

But ultimately there are some common threads there, and I'm interested to learn a little of how do you have opportunities to engage and teach and and learn from the people in these communities? Well, we have a, contract to provide, support services to the community. So we are, offering free consultations. So if a resident would like some help with their irrigation system or they would like to get some advice on their landscape, they can go on our website schedule a a consultation.

We've had over 100 consultations with residents in the past year. And so we're we're getting a lot of face time with the residents and hearing a, you know, hearing from them directly. We also do community events where we'll have, gardening workshops and we'll do like, nature hikes and we'll talk about the native plants in, in the wild and, and show them how they're also found in their gardens. We're doing a water dashboard where we work with the local utility to get, data on irrigation meters.

And we created a community dashboard to show them how they're doing at conserving water. But there are other things that we can do. We, we we're looking at partnering with an organization called Homegrown National Park, which is a national nonprofit that was founded by Doug Callum, who's an entomologist and an author who's written many books on native landscaping that are very popular here in the United States.

And they have, a way of engaging with residents to really help people understand just how much their individual garden matters.

And I think that's true all over the world. People sometimes overlook this. We we have a biodiversity crisis worldwide. There's over a million species threatened with extinction. You know, 33% of sharks are endangered and 40% of amphibians are endangered. There's been a 66% decline in insect populations. And it's really quite startling when you dive into the statistics of, of, biodiversity loss. Now, I'm not I'm not a pessimist.

I believe that there's plenty of opportunity for nature to come back. But we have a responsibility as stewards when we think about biodiversity loss, we think about habitat loss. And the loss of these habitats is the main driver, that is, that is causing the extinction of species. And when we think about habitat loss, we often assume that the, the approach is to conserve and to protect land.

Certainly in the United States, we think of our national park system, and all of the state and federal lands that are protected as the main, the main buffer. We have to protect these species. But but in truth, we need to also recruit the residential garden into this effort to protect biodiversity, because there's over 40 million acres of turfgrass in the United States.

And, you know, that's that's it's it's it's, the greatest land use, the greatest percentage of our land is in private ownership on residential homes. So even if your own garden is small, it matters, because what we've seen is that you bring one native plant species to a single garden. And before long, and I'm talking hours, not days. You'll see the pollinators. They just somehow find that plant and they show up in your garden. So it is a really powerful thing that people can do.

And so our, our challenge is to, to show people just how much they can actually contribute to these global issues at a very local level, in a way that is fun and easy and attainable, but also very meaningful. And so that's the type of messaging that we're we're looking for. And I don't think that we're quite there yet. We need to learn to become better storytellers and, partner with people such as yourself, to, you know, to really educate in an effective way. Fantastic. I absolutely love it.

I love that you've you've answered my next question, but I'm going to kind of throw it at you anyway. And that is, just a really quick quickfire answer that, kind of asking all of the guests on this season of the podcast

if people could take one step that's actionable in their day to day, what would it be that you'd recommend? Find a native nursery, purchase a few native plants and plant them in your garden and, and see if you might fall in love with with the idea of being, a steward of your own garden. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you. Very succinct and very, very important. Thank you for for sharing everything with us. It's it's fantastic.

I, I find it very unique, a very unique conversation, a very, unique circumstance of expanding that regenerative opportunity into such a large range of gardens. It's it's huge and it's evolving and there's so much that emerges within it.

So I've really appreciated speaking with you and would love to, to stay connected and see how we can learn from one another a little bit to, to leave us would you like to share with people, anything in particular about how they can learn more from you or continue to connect?

Well, if people are interested in this, project that I described, we have, a website called Outside colab.com that's outside colab.com. We have some great YouTube channels as well. I personally host a podcast called the Ground Up Podcast, and we talk about all of these issues, as well as issues relating to agriculture in Florida in the United States.

So there's plenty of ways to tune in, and I encourage people to to just, you know, look, look at your your own sphere of influence, look around your own garden, look within your own life. And there are ways that people can really have a big impact. Sometimes these problems seem too big to solve, and it feels like we have to rely on governments, to fix them for us. But I, I don't believe that. I think that we can all make a difference. And, it's the small things that really matter.

And there's a lot of ways that that everyone can, can connect with, with this type of work in their own, in their own locale. So, that would be my message. Thank you so much and best of luck with everything. Thank you very much, Alan. It's been lovely. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check the description for the links to learn more and engage with the work from Tim and the outside Colab, and you'll also find info for the animation that I created, which helped me and Tim to cross paths.

It's fun, short, and part of an ongoing campaign that I'm working on now for helping communities to reconnect with the nature at their feet. Have a watch and do reach out to me directly if you have an idea for what should come next, don't forget to subscribe to keep up to date. I'm Helen Fisher, this is We are carbon and let's keep figuring this all out together.