Urban Greenery & Food Infill, City Sustainability

Urban sustainability, Health food store parking lot garden, Ever'man, Pensacola

Even if all you have is just a tiny urban square foot garden, the act of planting veggies can offer so many benefits to you, your local community and the earth.

I always encourage people to plant natives, wildflowers and food in whatever free unpaved ground they can find.

Urban sustainability, US 90, Pensacola kale garden

Small ten foot wide gardens adjacent parking lots and roads can provide significant benefit to local ecosystems.  Tiny gardens offer communal and foraging habitat to both local and migratory critters and wildlife.  These critters and wildlife play an important part in natural pest control measures.  I've seen anoles consume bug after unwanted bug.  

Tiny plantings are especially important in urban concrete jungle settings.

Small plantings contribute to cleaner stormwater by filtering rain and trapping trash, keeping waterways free of debris.

Compact gardens do their part in moderating urban heat island effect, sequestering carbon, taking in CO2 and filling our urban air with fresh oxygen.

As these two plantings have caught my eye, tiny urban landscapes create a sense of place and beauty.

Not to mention education, awareness, biodiversity, seed harvest, pollinators and climate change, the above reasons are just a few of the many for planting wildflowers, food plants and natives in urban infill areas.

Florida Living Walls and Green Roofs, Nature Designed

Florida Living Walls, Vertical Urban Core Green by Mother Nature, Daytona Beach Church

For most my adult life I've been fascinated with understanding how plants colonize, live and proliferate on urban core structure roofs and walls.

Florida Living Walls, Vertical Urban Core Green by Mother Nature, Daytona Beach Church

Here are a few pictures of ferns finding a home on a church in Daytona Beach.  The benefits of urban green are many, including; carbon sequestration, urban heat island effect mitigation, habitat and pest control, rainwater attenuation and purification, oxygen production, sense of place and beauty and much more.

Florida Living Walls, Vertical Urban Core Green by Mother Nature, Daytona Beach Church

Examining how nature adapts plants to masonry provides insight into successful living wall design.

Next time you see a building with plants adorning the walls, stop and take a look.  Think about porosity, surface texture, locale, sun exposure and other variables contributing to the successful vertical green.

Florida Living Walls, Vertical Urban Core Green by Mother Nature, Daytona Beach Church

So much to learn and so many walls to plant!