(Feel free to use any of this to promote natural landscaping in your community; adapt my wording as needed.)
The three latest recipients of the “Eco Beauty Landscape Star Award” from Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild. One commercial property (thanks Will Bittorf!!!), and two private residents.
What they all have in common is that they have taken the SIMPLEST approach to achieving natural beachside BEAUTY, plus pollinator support /biodiversity, heat mitigation, & stormwater mitigation on their properties.
Known as the “Managed Meadow,” this approach helps restore our natural beachside beauty & ecology, while saving greatly on water and maintenance.
All of the properties have an array of flowers, shrubs, & other dune plants that vary with the seasons and offer sustenance to the bees, butterflies, & other more-than-human species on which we all depend in the web of life!
One of the properties, additionally, constitutes a slope restoration of truly heroic magnitude (belying its small physical area). Excess mowing, unnecessary blowing, and other mainstream practices not appropriately customized to our beachside environment had turned the sloped part of the yard into a bare sand dune! Now plants are covering the slope, and the erosion which had started to pose structural dangers has been arrested.
A Managed Meadow can have a more deliberate, formal appearance if desired, with the addition of rocks, logs, or other border materials; sculptures or other outdoor art; benches and birdbaths.
Thank you to these 3 latest award recipients and to all the other beachside neighbors whose natural yards are helping to mitigate our city’s flooding & heat, while also adding to the beauty of Beachside!!!