I think our landscapes should offer more than lawn as a means to get us from our mailboxes to the front door.

Imagine living in a nature preserve, or a park woodland teeming with life and birdsong in the air, knowing your surroundings are nurturing a healthy ecosystem. The homes where we live, the places we pass each day in our cars are our daily experiences of nature. Why do we feel nature is someplace that we have to drive to experience when we have the extra time?

I want to change the paradigm in our thinking about nature by bringing it into our everyday and bridge the separation of nature being some place out there and our lives being disconnected from it.

Studies have shown our mental health benefits from immersion in natural spaces. We feel more relaxed, less stressed, when we take the moment to simply be in a forest, or take a walk, and be observant with our senses of what is around us.

If the places where we live and visit each day could more closely relate to the natural world, then I feel our quality of life could also be enhanced. By adding plants in a naturalistic design, that mimic the layers of a healthy woodland for example, we can create a co-habitable ecosystem outside our very homes to enjoy everyday. Our walks to our cars and mailboxes can be an exciting anticipation of what you might see growing or developing in your own nature sanctuary.

Investing in landscapes that are alive by supporting wildlife, provides valuable returns to us in the quality of our daily lives by deepening our connections with the natural world, and the knowing we are aiding in the health of our environment and ourselves.