WHAT IS A BIO-SANCTUARY?
A bio-sanctuary can be as small as a patio pollinator garden on your apartment balcony or as large as a prairie restoration project on your cropland, pastureland, or farmstead acres. You can get involved today by joining the Bio-Sanctuary Network, which will grant you access to our mailing list, “how to” guides and resources, and the bio-sanctuary community, where you can learn how to plant your own bio-sanctuary and join the network of folks providing refuge to wildlife. Creating a bio-sanctuary is an actionable step for people and for nature.
Check out Photos of Bio-Sanctuaries (below) to get inspired by others in the Bio-Sanctuary Network who are doing their part to increase biodiversity in our natural world. By planting and promoting your own bio-sanctuary, you can help to inspire others, including leaders in your local and state government, school districts, community organizations, and businesses.
When we are joined together in bio-sanctuary actions, we can make a significant impact in creating habitat diversity to support all of nature’s life forms and to address the environmental challenges we face in agriculture regions.
PHOTOS OF BIO-SANCTUARIES
Explore the Photos of Bio-Sanctuaries to discover the range of ways folks in the Bio-Sanctuary Network are doing their part to increase biodiversity, habitat, and natural beauty. Whether you live in an apartment or on a big acreage farmstead, are a backyard gardener or a big acreage farmer, there are many ways you can grow your own bio-sanctuary and become part of a growing community.
Want to share photos of your bio-sanctuary with the Bio-Sanctuary Network? Send us your best shots (coming soon).
Stay tuned for our photo contests and keep in touch with the Bio-Sanctuary Network on Instagram (coming soon).
TESTIMONIALS
Perhaps the best reason to join the Bio-Sanctuary Network is the people you will meet. Here are some testimonials from folks just like you who joined the Bio-Sanctuary Network:
Craig and I affectionately call our home, Hill Street Gardens, our own private bio-sanctuary. We have created this peaceful paradise over the last 20 years. We walk our yard daily during spring, summer and fall to see what new plants and flowers are blooming. It has become a haven for a large variety of birds, bees, butterflies, dragonflies and squirrels. We love providing an environment “in town” where nature and wildlife thrive and where we can relax and enjoy the beauty.
Craig and Melissa Ethen,
St. Joseph, MN
My bio-sanctuary was not created purposefully. I simply wanted more flowers in my urban backyard, so I created a new flower bed. I decided to fill it up with coneflowers, blackeyed susans, bee balm, missouri evening primrose, and white false indigo. I also added ironweed, joe pye-weed, and a clump of little bluestem, to other areas in my backyard.
The flowers are beautiful, and all the plants seem to thrive in this urban setting. The pye-weed and ironweed tower over everything, their tall blooms waving in the summer breezes.
In addition to adding beautiful blooms to my yard, these plants attract all sorts of bees and butterflies. Two monarchs regularly visited my blooms last summer. And bees loved the pye-weed blooms. During last summer’s extreme heat, these native plants withtstood the temperatures and required less water than my non-native plants.
While my initial goal was aesthetic, I found actual joy in seeing pollinators visit my flowers throughout the summer, knowing my backyard was providing a small sanctuary for a larger piece of the environment.
Sue Navratil
Des Moines, IA
We wanted to create a small bio-sanctuary to help hummingbirds and pollinators so we bought a large backer’s rack on a garage sale, placed it on our deck and filled it with flowers in pots. Now we see many bees, butterflies and hummingbirds on our flowers. We started with a few pots and gradually added to our collection and we have found the pots to be quite effective over the years. We enjoy the beauty of of seeing nature outside our windows and while enjoying meals on the deck.
It is important to us to provide this small bio-sanctuary not only for the beauty it provides, but more importantly as a refuge and food source for pollinators and hummingbirds which visit our flowers. We like our small effort to help nature and improve diversity in an ever increasing monoculture environment.
Jill & Russ