{"id":1157,"date":"2020-03-12T13:44:17","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T21:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/?p=1157"},"modified":"2020-03-12T14:11:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T22:11:50","slug":"a-garden-books-are-all-you-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/a-garden-books-are-all-you-need\/","title":{"rendered":"A garden & books are all you need."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A garden & books are all you need.

I’m so grateful to have a lovely garden and books to enjoy every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of books, I just read a wonderful book, Nature\u2019s Best Hope<\/strong><\/em>, by Douglas Tallamy, and it really is a hopeful read on how we can all make a difference by planting native plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of replacing a lot of our thirsty, high-maintenance lawns with native plantings would be a wonderful addition to our city and could create a network of ecosystems that could allow for our native bees, insects, birds and other wildlife thrive right alongside of our homes and buildings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homegrown National Parks & Parkways:<\/strong>

Perhaps, as part of our neighborhood plans, we could discuss the possibility of making a plan to increase pollinator habitat and lower our city water demands by planting native plants along our parkways that are currently mostly grass. And, even better, we could incorporate paths and benches down the center of these parkways (Monaco, 7th, and 17th Parkway) that would allow for pedestrians to safely walk and experience the abundance of nature right in our city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could look at projects in other cities for inspiration, such as The High Line<\/strong> in NYC, which is a 1.45-mile-long elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur. It is amazingly popular among NYC visitors and residents, and provides a lot of peace and nature right in the heart of the city.

I think doing something like this with our Denver parkways could really elevate our city and make it more liveable for all residents \u2013 including wildlife as well as the poor souls who live in condos\/apartments and have no landscape of their own to enjoy in their neighborhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we could build, as Tallamy names it in his book, a \u201cHomegrown National Park\u201d<\/strong> in our existing greenways as well as in our own gardens, residents wouldn\u2019t have to commute to get to nature, it could be within walking distance of their home. No cars, buses or transportation needed. This would be a wonderful way that our city (and all cities) can help preserve green spaces and improve them with native plantings. I dream of a better world! Since change is inevitable, I always think: then how can we change things for the better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the main points of Nature’s Best Hope<\/em>, below. Stay tuned for a more formal infographic design<\/a> I’m working on to illustrate all the book’s main points. It’s a really great read, I highly recommend it if you like to read books! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above are some of my doodles and notes on the book attached, I thought it would be fun to design an infographic with all of the book\u2019s bigger points to share. \ud83d\ude42 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A garden & books are all you need. I’m so grateful to have a lovely garden and books to enjoy every day. Speaking of books, I just read a wonderful book, Nature\u2019s Best Hope, by Douglas Tallamy, and it really is a hopeful read on how we can all make a difference by planting native […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1165,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions\/1165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ijdesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}