Wildlife Gardens = Strong Neighborhoods

In 2024, over 20% of American adults that were surveyed reported "serious feelings of loneliness." That's according to a national study conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 75% of people surveyed said they wanted “public spaces that are more accessible and connection-focused like green spaces and playgrounds."

It turns out people want more than just a city park nearby. They want places to connect meaningfully with others, and that's exactly what neighborhood wildlife gardens do. They're filled with drought-tolerant, native plants that love our native DFW clay soils, require no irrigation system, no expensive raised beds, and no perimeter fence (like a food garden might). For under $600, your neighborhood can create a 1000 square foot wildlife garden. For about 60 cents per city resident, everyone in DFW could have a wildlife garden within walking distance. In this article we'll talk about why DFW cities need more green spaces devoted to supporting wildlife and how we will build them, one at a time.

Loneliness and Green Spaces

According to the Harvard study, for adults of prime home-buying age, loneliness is most severe (29% among those aged 30-44, compared to just 10% for those aged 65+). Young parents are 3x more likely to indicate loneliness than retirees. Creating these new green spaces will mean increased property values for neighborhoods, making the city more attractive to new residents. A garden in the backyard is great. A neighborhood garden at a city park is even better.

In 2023, the U.S. surgeon general declared the issue of loneliness to be a national epidemic. His 82-page advisory highlights the problem, and provides several recommendations. One of those can be implemented by local leaders. The report recommended support for social infrastructure, "the programs (such as volunteer organizations, sports groups, religious groups, and member associations)...and physical elements of a community (such as libraries, parks, green spaces, and playgrounds) that support the development of social connection." Strengthening this infrastructure is "critical to advancing key aspects of community health, resilience, safety, and prosperity."

Neighborhood gardens are a powerful way to bring people together, connecting young and old, homeowners and renters, experienced gardeners and newbies, helping to build connections cross-culturally, mitigate the urban heat island effect, and restore habitat needed by local DFW wildlife. Unlike a food garden which can require a very high upfront investment of time and money, putting them out of reach for many communities, a wildlife garden is easy to construct and maintain, giving people one more reason to choose to live in our city, enroll their kids in our schools, and bring to our city all of their gifts, talents, and creativity.

Wildlife Gardens are Affordable

Green spaces that help people connect don't necessarily have to produce food. Many DFW gardens do have food production as a goal, but a wildlife garden can be built very affordably and deliver many of the same social benefits. At a time when city budgets are under stress, it can be hard to create new food-producing gardens and line up streams of revenue to keep them running. Food gardens often need imported quality soil to amend heavy clay, raised beds, irrigation systems, access to a source of water, a fence around the perimeter, monitoring of who is harvesting what (and who's paid their dues), fertilizer, and new seeds and annual plants every year. Not to mention significant effort to install a new garden, and ongoing volunteer needs. It's no wonder that many good sites for gardens can't line up all the necessary resources to ever break ground.

Wildlife gardens are completely different. A wildlife garden includes drought-tolerant, native plants that love our local DFW clay soils and tolerate our hot, dry summers. No expensive soil amendments, irrigation system, or raised beds. 10 neighbors can get together, pitch in $60 and a day of volunteer work, and the garden is done. If Richardson had a wildlife garden for every 1000 residents, the city would be dotted with over 100 gardens. 1% of residents (about 1000 people) would lead the creation of these new spaces, with a wildlife center within walking distance of every city resident. The gardens would save HOAs (or the city) money on paying to mow, with 100,00 square feet (2+ acres) now being cared for by local residents.

In this article we’ll share some of the academic studies that describe the benefits of neighborhood gardens, including improved individual health, improved property values, reduced incidence of crime (and the fear of crime in an area), and probably what matters most in our communities today…..an enhanced sense of togetherness, belonging, and connection. With stories of violence in the news almost daily, on top of America's loneliness epidemic, community green spaces that can be built quickly and affordably are what we all need.

Parks for Pollinators BioBlitz

DFW is ready to build more wildlife habitat. More and more residents are looking to interact with local wildlife and find more places to observe all that DFW has to offer. Since 2018, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) has hosted their national Parks for Pollinators BioBlitz, every September. Across the country, city residents take pictures of wildlife found at their local city parks.

The 2024 NRPA BioBlitz campaign included citizen scientist observations from several DFW cities (Allen, Plano, and Cedar Hill), as well as campaigns in San Antonio, Pasadena, Galveston, Pflugerville, and Georgetown. In another blog article, we highlight some of the butterflies, skippers, (non-stinging) bees, beetles, dragonflies, frogs, lizards, birds, moths, and beneficial insects you may find in your own backyard or at a city park near you. Building a wildlife garden gives your neighborhood an annual September event that everyone can join in. In September 2026, you can invite your neighborhood to create your own BioBlitz project for free using iNaturalist.

The Giving Grove

For an inspiring story about what local neighborhood residents have the power to accomplish, look no further than The Giving Grove. Nancy Chapman talks about the work the organization has done since 2011, creating mini fruit orchards across Kansas City, Missouri and across the country. In DFW, the Giving Grove has already setup 40 orchards with 514 trees.

Fruit trees are great for school gardens. School children do need education about healthy eating habits, and local food banks do rely on donated, local fresh fruit. A wildlife garden can easily include a few fruit trees, offering something for us along with something for wildlife. Plum trees yield about 200 pounds of fruit each year (4 bushels, 50 pounds per bushel). Organic plums cost $3.00+ per pound, meaning that a small neighborhood garden with four trees can yield $2000+ of fruit every year. With 25% donated to a food bank, there's plenty to encourage volunteers to care for the garden.

Buying four, 5-gallon potted, 2-year-old trees costs $200, for $30,000 of fruit over 15 years. Four people pitching in $50 each. That's not bad. Fruit trees also offer shade to sit in the hot DFW summer and look out into the neighborhood garden. 1 tree per 100 city residents would be about 1000 trees in Richardson, 10 trees at 100 gardens for 200,000 pounds of fresh fruit annually, rewarding 1 volunteer per tree with $500,000 every year (and $200,000 donated). One tree at a time, one garden at a time.

For our DFW alkaline soil, Texas A&M recommends several plum varieties including Methley, Santa Rosa, Bruce, Morris, and Ozark Premiere. Plums on Guardian rootstock need about 15-20' spacing and get about 12-15' tall. Beneath the shade, there are many plants that will thrive and invite hummingbirds and butterflies including Turks' Cap, Yarrow, Frogfruit, Chile Pequin, American Beautyberry, Scarlet Sage, Horseherb, Pigeonberry, and Southern Wood Fern.

The Monarch Butterfly

The story of the Monarch butterfly has its lessons to teach us about the loneliness epidemic in America. At the same time as millions of Americans say they need more green spaces and feel disconnected, the natural world also needs us. Nature needs us, and we need nature. It's a remarkable thing that happens every fall, when the Monarch butterfly that we all love migrates south, along the western and eastern corridors. The western migration is about 300 miles, to the Pacific Coast of California. The eastern migration is as far as 3000 miles, from Canada all the way to Michoacan, Mexico.

Miguel Angel Cruz Dominguez tells the story of El Rosario, one of the places the Monarch overwinters in the Sierra Campanario sanctuary, a place that's been cared for and nurtured for many generations by people who have many green spaces. Scientists were unaware of where the Monarchs went for the winter until local people helped them in 1976 (the work of Fred Urquhart, published in National Geographic: "Found at last: the monarch's winter home"). Silent Spring was published in 1962, alerting Americans to the dangers of new, modern chemical "miracle" compounds, that today continue to cause declines in the Monarch population. The book described how DDT had "entered the food chain and accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals, including human beings, and caused cancer and genetic damage."

The chemical industry was not happy. An executive of the American Cyanamid Company wrote: "If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." After a review of the science supporting the claims in Silent Spring, in 1972 the EPA banned DDT, in its second year as a new government agency. 4 years later, the overwintering home of the Monarch was published in National Geographic.

What scientists know today, with a more holistic understanding of ecology, is that beneficial insects - like lacewings and lady beetles - help protect our food supply by attacking insects that harm food crops, for free, so long as we provide the habitat they need. It's a win-win relationship. We give, and we receive. Most of our food relies on the work of pollinating insects, who give us an economic value of $15 billion annually and only ask for habitat in exchange, at a time when over 20% of pollinators are at elevated risk. Ecofriendly lawn care that uses the best science available today is one way to avoid causing harm to local wildlife populations. When we give what nature needs from us, we can expect all of our needs to be met.

Although a lot of work has been done the past 50 years, there's still a lot more to do. During the 2023-2024 winter, the World Wildlife Fund and other researchers documented a 59% decrease in Monarch overwintering areas, declining from 5.5 acres the year prior to just 2.2 acres. Widespread use of herbicides along the migration corridor, from Mexico to Canada, continue to reduce the population of milkweed plants that the Monarch relies on to feed its young. With less food, a much smaller population actually arrives in the fall in Mexico.

In July 2025, a Xerces Society press release drew attention to the impact that insecticides continue to have on monarch butterflies in the western corridor. The western monarch population has declined by nearly 95% since the 1980s, with fewer than 10,000 individuals counted in 2024. Conflict over land being withheld from timber logging (for the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO world heritage site) led to two community leaders being killed in 2020. DDT was banned nearly 50 years ago, and yet in 2023 major chemical companies in the US that manufacture "forever chemicals" (PFAS) agreed to over $11 billion in settlements. Forever chemicals have now been found in the environment all over the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found the chemicals may be in the blood of 97% of Americans. And over 1 in 5 Americans say they feel disconnected from others, and in need of reconnection with the natural world. Nature needs us, and we need nature.

City Parks and Green Spaces

DFW city parks and green spaces - filled with all the wildlife that our Blackland Prairie ecoregion wants to offer us - play a vital role in bringing people back together to solve the social problem of loneliness, the problem of lost habitat for wildlife, and to create communities that people want to move into, where they want to stay and put down roots. As public schools incorporate school gardens onto their campuses, academic achievement generally improves. A stronger ISD with great schools does a world of good to support property values, the foundation for a healthy city.

Most of the benefits we’ll talk about in detail (down below) are the result of neighbors helping neighbors. It’s thanks to the connections people make with each other, creating the gardens, caring for them, getting their hands dirty, learning how to find win-win solutions to problems, come together, communicate, and collaborate. It’s not something that can be done for the neighborhood; it really has to be done by your neighborhood, for your neighborhood. Here's a few places you and your neighbors might consider creating a garden:

At a public-school campus in your neighborhood, that has land open to the public, in partnership with the school PTA. Meet with the PTA leaders and school principle and talk about the benefits for school children.
At a city park nearby that doesn’t have a butterfly garden (yet). Talk with your Parks and Rec team. Talk with your City Council person. Consider joining a Community Advisory Board for Wildlife Gardens, to create a way of reviewing and approving proposals to create new gardens on public lands, with an HOA as the sponsor.
On land that is owned by the HOA, costing money now to mow. Talk with your HOA president and your neighbors about new green spaces to improve property values.

Garden Maintenance

In another article, we describe how to build a school garden on a budget. The process is almost the same for a neighborhood garden with HOA volunteers. Designing the garden doesn’t have to be difficult. Installation can take just 2 or 3 days.

The real question is ongoing maintenance. What is needed to keep the space looking great? Drought-tolerant plants don’t require supplemental water. No need for an expensive irrigation systems that can break, or access to a water meter. Native plants don’t need any soil amendments. A wildlife garden is once and (pretty much almost) done. A little seasonal trimming of the plants requires some volunteer care, but that's kind of the point of the garden....to create a space to meet and talk with neighbors. Even a small child can help prune the plants in the spring.

Community Organizations

There's a lot of organizations and groups in DFW involved in community gardening. Here's just a short list of a few of them to get connected with. Most of these are related to growing food. You may find that your wildlife garden is an easy way to get started.....and later it may evolve into a garden that also eventually does grow food. Your idea of what the space can be will grow as your plants grow. You may dig them up and relocate them. They'll be bigger and more valuable when you do.

Community Gardens in City Parks

How can city park land be used to meet the need for more connection-focused green spaces? The Missouri-based MOST Policy Initiative summarized some of the benefits of green spaces in a 2024 publication. A few excerpts are below:

“Community gardeners interviewed in 2010 rated stress relief as the most important reason for gardening (56%), as well as staying active (50%), and staying healthy (42%)...Another study from 2013 showed a benefit in lowered body mass index (BMI) for community gardeners vs their neighbors: Women community gardeners’ average BMI was 1.48 lower than their neighbors’ BMI, and men community gardeners’ average BMI was 2.52 lower than their neighbors’...In a survey of 300+ community gardeners, most said that they felt their gardens improve their sense of community and have a positive effect on their neighborhoods in engaging diverse populations...”

“The National Recreation and Parks Association profiles two examples in its handbook on best practices in establishing [food] gardens in city parks.... [In both cases] the Parks and Recreation departments provided the land on city property and initial start-up support. The gardens are often managed by community-led groups.....Community gardens could enhance the overall value of parkland, since several studies show that property values tend to increase in areas surrounding community gardens, typically by >10%. Parks themselves are associated with a 10-20% increase in property value for nearby homeowners. In the city of Seattle, as the city’s budget for park maintenance and operations has decreased, community gardens’ integration into parks has reduced staffing pressures since the garden sites are maintained predominantly by gardeners rather than Parks crew.”

Community Safety and Health

How do gardens affect community safety? Long gone are the days of letting the kids run free until dinner time in the neighborhood. Today’s children spend up to 44 hours a week in front of a screen, and less than 10 minutes a day playing outdoors (Children & Nature Network). Parents are anxious, and often for good reasons. Creating more community gardens can help ease anxieties and help to get children (and us adults) back out again, talking with neighbors in green spaces being cared for by us. In a 2023 study published in the American Journal of Community Psychology, researchers offer an overview of academic research about neglected urban spaces, crime, and violence. A few excerpts are provided below:

"Residents with overgrown, untended lots nearby their homes have been found to have higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress...Unmaintained areas have potential to directly threaten the safety of neighborhood residents: Violent crimes are more likely to occur near unmaintained, vacant lots than maintained lots...The social health of neighborhoods is also significantly impacted by vacant land, through lower neighborhood satisfaction and increased perceptions of social disorder...."

"Indicators of physical disorder also impact perceptions of neighborhood investment, which may signal a weak sense of community in the neighborhood...Fear of crime is also a significant health consequence of vacant land... Researchers have reported that fear of crime can have negative consequences for health and well-being, by reducing mobility and physical activity, causing individuals to stay home...Fear of crime can deter residents from walking in their neighborhoods, creating a cycle of avoidance, which researchers suggest perpetuates the continued decline of vacant, unkept land in the area."

"In a citywide cluster randomized controlled trial of greening interventions [including community gardens], Branas et al. (2018) restored vacant land over three years to test the effects of vacant land restoration on violence, crime, fear, and perceptions of safety. The researchers attributed a 58% reduction in resident’s safety concerns and a 76% increase in the use of outside spaces to the greening interventions."

Children’s Mental Health

What about neighborhood gardens and children's health? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 20% of children and teens nationwide (aged 3-17) years struggle with a mental, emotional, or behavioral challenge. The AAP cites a CDC study (2021-2023 data) indicating about 20% of adolescents age 12-17 have unmet mental health needs. The AAP in July 2025 conducted a literature review of 50 studies, concluding that access to quality mental health care is not equal for all children (“Disparities in Pediatric Mental Health Care in Emergency Departments: A Scoping Review”). Nature therapy can play a big role, especially with school gardens.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for PTSD provides some insight into the effects on children and teens of community violence (something that green spaces can help reduce). The VA reports that in the US, more than one third of children age 10-16 have been victims of direct violence. “If affected by violence, a child may have to cope with physical, medical, or mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, or PTSD. Some people think that young children are not harmed by community violence because they are too young to understand or remember. However, studies have found signs of PTSD in babies and young children."

What To Do Now

The best time to plant a wildlife garden is in the fall. It's a bit too late for Fall 2025, because planning takes some time. But it's always a good time to start planning for the next upcoming fall season. Right now....do you have a space for a wildlife garden in your home landscape? If you have 150 square feet available, you can buy the plants you’ll need for a home garden and support the Richardson ISD Council of PTAs.

Create a garden at your home this fall. Invite neighbors over in the spring as it blooms. Download the iNaturalist app on your phone and take a stroll through a nearby park and see how much wildlife you can find. Join the PTA for your nearby neighborhood school. Take time to talk with neighbors and see if there's a group of ten that want to pitch in $56 to help create a wildlife garden together. Find four more people and you can plant some fruit trees, too. 800 pounds of fresh fruit is plenty to donate 200 and enjoy 600 pounds for 14 volunteers.

Make plants to, once the garden's built, meet in the garden the 1st Saturday of the month during nice weather. A wildlife garden that doesn't need much maintenance is a joy just to be in, to watch all the life that comes to visit. Not doing. Not harvesting. Just sitting and sharing that moment with people in your community. The truth is....every neighborhood in DFW has what we need. We have people. We have land. Almost everybody has $56. We spend on average 180 hours on Facebook each year, and 20% of American adults say we want something better. Let's make it happen. It's up to us to build the green spaces that needed to have already been built. All that needs doing is to decide to do it. And then do it.

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Soils Alive is a small, family-owned business, serving DFW since 1997. We offer ecofriendly lawn care. We don't lock homeowners in to annual lawn care contracts. And we don't have a 1-800 corporate phone number when you have a question or concern. For over 25 years, we've helped DFW homeowners use up to 80% less chemicals on their lawn and landscape, protecting local wildlife, pets, and children. We can help you too. Get in contact with our team if you need more resources for your neighborhood. We are here to support you and your neighbors....one wildlife garden, ecofriendly lawn, and residential landscape at a time.