Ecological Gardening Series: What is Ecological Gardening?
Joseph Glasscock Community Center, 3653 Tom Weathers Dr, Chattanooga, TN, 37415 Map
Public Welcome Free Event Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking
Join Tennessee Valley Chapter of Wild Ones for our 7-class series in Ecological Gardening, taught by local experts who are passionate personal and professional ecological gardeners. You can attend classes as a series, or as standalone classes.
Our first class is to help us get to know the elements of ecological gardening. We read and heard about these in our 2025 studies of Dr. Doug Tallamy's work. Haley Hamblen with the City of Chattanooga's RainSmart program will provide an overview of ecological gardening that each of the following classes will build upon.
For those who didn't read Dr. Tallamy or hear him speak at our Distinguished Lecture Series, October 2025, the following is a little bit of what ecological gardening is about from Doug Tallamy's perspective.
Doug Tallamy, an entomologist and author known for promoting ecological gardening through the "Homegrown National Park" initiative, outlines four essential, functional roles that every residential landscape should fulfill to support biodiversity: supporting a diverse food web, managing watersheds, sequestering carbon, and preserving pollinators.
The 4 Pillars of Ecological Landscaping
Support a Functional Food Web: Plant native species that host insects, particularly caterpillars, which are essential food for birds and other wildlife.Manage Local Watersheds: Use plants and groundcovers to absorb rainwater, reduce erosion, and filter pollutants, rather than relying on high-runoff lawn.Sequester Carbon: Utilize trees and plants to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.Support Pollinators: Plant a variety of native flowering plants that bloom throughout the season to provide habitat and food for native bees and butterflies.
Key Actions for Implementation
Reduce Lawn Area: Shrink the amount of lawn to create more space for native, biodiversity-supporting plants.Use Native Plants: Replace non-native plants with native species, such as oak trees, which are considered "keystone" plants.Eliminate Pesticides/Mosquito Sprays: Avoid chemicals that kill beneficial insects and pollinators.
Tallamy emphasizes that these actions transform, private properties into vital, interconnected wildlife corridors.
Speaker: Haley Hamblen, Water Quality Specialist - RainSmart Program Manager, City of Chattanooga, Public Works / Engineering