Homegrown national parks in Nova Scotia and beyond

By Suzanne Rent

This item originally appeared as VIEWS in Morning File, March 21, 2024

Bev Wigney’s property is now part of a network of homegrown national parks. Wigney lives in Round Hill near Annapolis Royal and bought her two-acre property that borders the Round Hill River in 2010. 

“Basically, the whole property is devoted to nature,” Wigney said. “I don’t have any lawn here.” 

So, last week, when Wigney learned about the Homegrown National Park project, she decided to sign up her property.

In April 2023, the David Suzuki Foundation announced it was partnering with U.S.– based Homegrown National Park movement to encourage people to promote biodiversity on their own properties and in their communities.

The Homegrown National Park movement started with Doug Tallamy, the author of Nature’s Best Hope and Bring Nature Home, two books on rewilding properties for native plants and insects. Rather than wait for governments to create systems of natural parks, Tallamy encouraged people to start their own network of homegrown national parks on private and public land where they could grow native plants, shrubs, and trees that would support local birds and insects.

“Despite being the planet’s largest and most diverse group of organisms, insects have declined by 45 per cent over the past 40 years,” said Tallamy, co-founder of the Homegrown National Park said in a press release about the project.

“But each of us can play a hands-on role. If we each do our own small part, not only can we restore insect populations, we will also create the largest collective conservation effort in history.”

The idea took off in the United States and is now in Canada. Wigney said during the early months of the COVID pandemic, when Zoom was taking over from in-person presentations, Tallamy became a very popular speaker on gardening and nature groups. That’s how she heard about the project. She googled to find a local equivalent, and learned Homegrown National Park had come to Canada, too.

Wigney said when she signed up last week there were about 23 people in Nova Scotia who signed up their properties to the project. That number is now more than doubled. You can find the interactive map here.

“I guess the idea came to them that if a lot of people across the United States were to turn their lawns — even if they did half their lawns or part of their lawns — into native plantings and for nature, it could rival the total area of national parks,” Wigney said. 

So far in Canada, 504.3 hectares and 711 people have signed up to the Homegrown National Park map. The total of planted areas is 1,115.

In Nova Scotia, 45 people have signed up with 49.8 hectares of property, totaling 49 planted areas.

Wigney is the administrator for a Facebook group called Annapolis Environment and Ecology. She posted about the Homegrown National Park project there, and people started signing up. Wigney said the Homegrown National Park website provides tips on how to get started. She said the decline of native plants is happening more as people grow bigger lawns and use pesticides. 

“This kind of thing really matters to me,” she said. “I know it’s important because I see the need there’s going to be less and less forest on properties around here, as more is converted to crop lands or cut down to make houses.”  

So far, Nova Scotia has the third highest number of participants in the project; Ontario is first, with British Columbia in second spot. 

Wigney said people don’t need to have a lot of property to sign up. She said you can take part by having a raised garden bed or even container plants that have native species like wildflowers. For example, people can plant swamp milkweed. 

“That is a wild plant, and it is native to Nova Scotia. It’s very pretty and a person can grow a couple of those in their garden and have a place for monarchs to lay eggs,” she said. 

“The idea is to create an interconnected habitat. If you plant some milkweed, it’s amazing how monarchs will find that, even if it’s just a little tiny stand. Anyone can really make a difference and that’s the whole idea.” 

But Wigney said not using pesticides, keeping lights off at night, and not raking leaves in the autumn months helps, too.  

When we think of national parks and protecting lands, we think of projects that are led by governments. Nova Scotia, for example, has a goal of protecting 20% of the province’s land and water by 2030

But the Homegrown National Park project is a more hands-on process, and it’s quicker.  

“We need to do this because we are not seeing land being protected at the speed it should be or the right kind of land being protected,” Wigney said.

“While that’s happening, we’re losing species. We can’t just sit around waiting for the government to fix this problem.” 

The Homegrown National Park project doesn’t mean that people can visit your yard like they would visit a government designated park.  

“The whole idea is more that people will be motivated to be part of it and do something about their property to make it more native,” Wigney said. “It is making a statement. The more people show they care about nature then the map starts to fill up. That’s giving a pretty loud-and-clear message to government these people care about nature.” 

Wigney said she’s been naturalist for as long as she can remember. She learned about native plants from her parents and her grandmother.

“That really is my nature. I hope and think other people should care as much. A lot more people care about green lawn,” she said.  

She also photographs moths, which she said are “very influenced” by the plants on your property.  

“If you don’t have the right plants, you won’t have the species of moths,” she said.

Birds and insects move through corridors, and they need to be able to get food as they move along.  

“We’re starting to see as more of these native plants are grown, some of these insects that used to be here are starting to come back,” Wigney said. “But that’s only because people are growing those particular plants for those particular insects.” 

Wigney said the project is really about creating a movement to plant more native plants.

“It’s about getting people involved so they will be thinking this way and will be less inclined to leave a yard as a big green space that’s no use to you other than needing to be cut once a week,” she said.