Our Work

Tiny Habitats restores nature in our cities and backyards one patch at a time.

 

We design, build and install native plant container gardens. Each garden provides a habitat patch for pollinators and other wildlife—supporting biodiversity on a small scale and adding habitat links to larger green spaces in urban areas.   

Native plant container gardens are an economical way to enhance an outdoor seating or gathering area while promoting biodiversity—and human health. During the time of COVID-19, our container gardens provide an effective and attractive means of social distancing in outdoor seating arrangements.

Our container gardens—more like raised beds—can be installed on city sidewalks, public plazas, urban patios and private backyards. Installation does not require extensive earthmoving or excavating, making containers an affordable option for urban landscapes—and a great fit for any space or budget. 

Many studies have shown that exposure to green space and nature in cities can reduce human stress levels. During the time of COVID-19, our container gardens offer the additional benefit of providing an effective and attractive means of social distancing in outdoor seating arrangements.

Tiny habitats support biodiversity on a small scale.

Like tiny homes, our Tiny Habitats offer an ecologically sustainable alternative—in this case, to conventional planting. We use real soil in our gardens, avoiding unsustainable materials like peat moss, which is typically used in container gardens. Our selective mix of native plants includes host plants for pollinator specialists and an array of seasonal blooms, ranging in size and offering a variety of phytonutrients, all of which provide exceptional pollinator habitat value. 

 

Tiny Habitats marries ecology with design, using native plants to create beautiful and functional outdoor spaces.

 

Our naturalistic designs feature a perennial mix of drought-tolerant, low-maintenance plants and bring a touch of “the wild” to the urban landscape. They offer a number of benefits to both people and wildlife:

Benefits to people

  • Help enforce social distancing 

  • Visually pleasing seasonal blooms provide year-round interest

  • Attract pollinators to neighborhood gardens 

  • Help re-green city sidewalks and neighborhoods

  • Create a local sense of place and community

  • Create “green respite” from urban stresses and healing connection with nature

  • Provide design inspiration for home gardeners

Benefits to wildlife

  • Offer year-round habitat and food sources

  • Increase diversity and availability of food 

  • Offer “way stations” between disconnected sources of food and shelter 

  • Provide host plants for insect specialists

  • Offer rest sites and habitat for local and migratory species

  • “Living soil” (with real dirt, wood and other biomass), builds organically rich and varied microbial community

Tiny Habitats adds green space in small doses, improving ecological function and helping to link patches of existing habitat in fragmented urban landscapes.

Increasing concerns about biodiversity and habitat loss require a new approach to the design of outdoor spaces—an approach that marries design with ecology. It’s sometimes called conservation landscaping or ecological design. No matter what the name, it’s the future of landscaping. On their own, our pollinator mini-habitats offer a source of year-round food and shelter to wildlife; as part of a larger design, they also support habitat function across the urban landscape. Strategically installing our Tiny Habitats in places where existing green space is limited or unavailable provides a novel way to link habitat and build a more connected landscape over a larger scale.