Thanks to grant, Bedford Audubon’s native garden is getting a major makeover

Now, it is in need of some serious work — and, as it did in 2012, the Leon Levy Foundation is providing funding for the garden project. 

“Native gardening is a big part of our mission these days,” said Mr. Cavers. “We’re mainly about birds and the environment, but native gardening has become a substantial portion of the discussion. It connects with people who have lawns and gardens and houses, and how they can feel effective about changing things away from your typical lawn — which just absorbs water and fertilizer and doesn’t add much back — into a landscape that adds a lot back, and helps grow the habitat for wildlife and birds.”

While their workshops and education programs on native gardens have been booming, said Mr. Cavers, over time, the garden itself has deteriorated and become less of an example. Invasives have crept in, and there’s been a cross-mixing of plants. “Also,” he added, “when we did it in 2012, there were a lot of methods and plants chosen” that are no longer considered best practices by leading educators in the field. With the new project, he sees an opportunity not only to restore the native garden, but to update it using current practices to create a next-generation version.

“Thoughts on native gardening have gotten a lot more sophisticated,” he said. One of the leading thinkers he points to is Douglas Tallamy, an entomologist at the University of Delaware, and author of “Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard.” “His goal is to get us to re-wild parts of our suburban landscape,” said Mr. Cavers. Mr. Tallamy has been quoted as saying a monoculture of lawn is a landscape that “for ecological purposes might as well be a parking lot.”

With that philosophy in mind, and with the recently-awarded grant from the Leon Levy Foundation, Bedford Audubon has hired a Westchester firm called Plan it Wild, an ecological landscape design company that transforms private yards and landscapes into native habitats that capture carbon from the air and increase biodiversity. “We’ve contracted with them to renovate our garden, and do it over a nine-month period. We want it to happen over two planting seasons, spring and fall, and most importantly to help our volunteers work with them, so it becomes an educational opportunity for our volunteers as well as it is something for our community to watch.”

One of the goals, said Mr. Cavers, is to make the native garden more bird-friendly, so it functions as a habitat for living creatures. That’s a change from the garden’s central idea dating back a decade or more, which was to make it “native to the area but pleasing to my eye,” with trappings of the ornamental.

“Here we’re now saying, we do want it to look good, it’s true, but we want as a philosophy for pollinators to be attracted to it, and birds to be attracted to it, and serve as a feeding source and a birthing place for insects and the whole food chain that relies on that,” said Mr. Cavers. “It’s evolved into more sophisticated thought.”

Mr. Cavers explained that an outside firm also was hired to help design the garden for the last project, while Audubon relied heavily on volunteers to do the work. This time, he said, while they have once again hired an outside firm, the emphasis will be on the experience that volunteers can gain from working on the renovation.

“We could hire a work crew next week of like 10 guys who bring a couple of trucks in, and the garden could be done in a week,” he said. “But there’s not a lot of value in that.”

He said the volunteers who help establish the garden will learn from Plan it Wild and can then carry it forward. “The concept of knowledge transfer was something that Plan it Wild was very in tune with,” said Mr. Cavers. “We interviewed five or six different firms, and they were the only one that had this kind of missionary zeal that we had, to implant this knowledge in other people.” 

To support this aspect of the project, Bedford Audubon has arranged for the firm’s native garden experts to lead weekly instructional sessions for the volunteers. It also is forming the New Garden Volunteer Program, giving volunteers the opportunity to work next to Plan it Wild workers as they help revitalize the native garden. A schedule of volunteer hours will be made available throughout the eight-month project, which will also indicate the instruction sessions on native garden installation and editing.

The emphasis on gardening education will also include supplemental materials and workshops. “We’ve been doing that for our old garden, and we want to up that game. We want our volunteers to lead on that, explain things to people who visit, and take that knowledge home to their friends,” he said. 

Another new aspect of the project, said Mr. Cavers, is that Plan it Wild will develop documentation on how to take care of the garden on an annual and seasonal basis. 

For this grant cycle, Bedford Audubon has also received additional funds from the Leon Levy Foundation for three years of maintenance. “That was a challenge for us last time,” Mr. Chaver noted. Actually, he added, “We think we’ve got four years taken care of, and there will be enough knowledge transfer that our staff and our volunteers will be able to take care of the garden going forward.”

The front of the garden at Bylane Farm, which measures about 120 feet by 30 feet, will be the main focus of the renovation. Mr. Cavers revealed that there are a number of other areas around the property Bedford Audubon would like to turn into pocket gardens. “These would have different features,” he explained. “One is a woodland area; another we would like to make a butterfly garden; another would be good for a water feature; another is overlooking a marsh, where we hope to fix a dam and turn it into a pond again.” If enough volunteer crews can be assembled, he added, there’s a chance this work could even start later this year.

With the new project, Bedford Audubon has an opportunity to build on its strong reputation and exceptional surroundings, he said. “If you come over to our property and that front garden’s a stunner, it has a message to it and we can explain it more. That’s using our platform to really influence the community.”

Mr. Cavers elaborated on another positive of highlighting native gardens. “With all the doom and gloom we’re feeling about climate change, we all feel so powerless,” he said. “But doing something in your yard for native plants is this small zone where you can do something. It’s tangible, it’s a way you can fight back.” 

There’s a physical aspect to creating a re-wilding in suburbia, he noted, but also a shared sense of purpose for those working together to support laws, funding and new behaviors. “People can feel part of something that’s very positive,” he said. “It has an outsized influence on the world. I feel it’s pretty important.”

The Leon Levy Foundation was founded in 2004 by the estate of investor, mutual fund manager and philanthropist, Leon Levy, who died in 2003. His widow, Shelby White, lives in South Salem and has funded other projects around town, most notably the Leon Levy Preserve, in addition to initiatives around the world.

The amount of the grant provided by the Leon Levy Foundation was not disclosed. 

Bedford Audubon’s Bylane Farm is located at 35 Todd Road Katonah. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Saturday, and sanctuary trails are open from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. For more information, visit bedfordaudubon.org.