Background/Question/Methods Protected natural areas are not enough to support biodiversity, and urban areas have the potential to support an array of wildlife, and create connectivity with natural areas rather than totally isolating them. The challenge is to find effective approaches to empower and motivate property owners to landscape in ways that supports wildlife; using focus groups, surveys and interviews, this study set out to research the perceived and existing barriers among homeowners in Florida. The findings were contrasted with approaches used up to present to entice urban dwellers to landscape in an environmentally-friendly way. The outcomes of this comparison led to the design of a project where homeowners in a subdivision in Sarasota County, FL, were selected to have their yards re-landscape and turned into demonstration sites for other residents. Innovative behavioral, educational, ecological, and logistics strategies were used to engage homeowners, design the yards, overcome the barriers to change landscaping behaviors, and training residents to monitor wildlife.
Results/Conclusions The initial research found three types of barriers to changing landscaping behaviors: 1. Logistical. Including a lack of: Nurseries that carry the plant materials needed; landscape designers trained to use native plants; landscape maintenance companies capable to maintain these environmentally-friendly yards; and, restrictions from homeowner associations covenants to implement these landscapes. 2. Behavioral. These were lack of knowledge, skills, time, money, and/or interest among property owners to tackle environmentally-friendly landscaping. 3. Attitudinal. These included perceptions that these landscapes are not as aesthetically pleasing, attract pests, create problems because they break social norms, and several others.
Engaging the subdivision homeowners and its HOA in the design and implementation of environmentally-friendly landscapes and in wildlife monitoring resulted in the following outcomes: participants' enhanced understanding of the ecological interactions between natural and urban areas; a desire to share what they learned and are doing; an improvement in the supply and demand of native plants, an effective approach to train landscape professionals, increasing the number who can design and maintain these landscapes; effective strategies and materials to empower homeowners to design and plant their yards and improve the likelihood of long-term behavioral change; engagement of homeowners in long-term monitoring of wildlife; community building and social diffusion of environmentally-friendly landscaping. For the next 3 years, this study will continue monitoring the changes and potential diffusion of practices to other communities.