Coming Up: Open Montclair Backyard Habitat Tour

In recognition of Montclair’s status as New Jersey’s first National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Community Wildlife Habitat, the Montclair Backyard Habitat Project is holding a free Backyard Habitat tour from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 15.

Come and see how your neighbors are creating beautiful, healthy, chemical-free yards that support birds and butterflies. All participating homes have NWF-certified Backyard Habitats. This means they provide the basics for desired wildlife—food, water, cover, and places to raise young—while helping the environment by using native plants, composting, eliminating pesticide use, and conserving water.

Van Vleck Gardens will also take part to show off its butterfly garden. Montclair’s 2010 certification as a Community Wildlife Habitat culminated six years of work by the Backyard Habitat Project, which succeeded in getting nearly 200 Montclair locations certified as habitats. Each home certified as a Backyard Habitat gave the town one point towards community certification.

If you haven’t yet certified your home, school, business, house of worship, or local park, it’s not too late—the goal is to certify at least 10 more Montclair sites a year. No yard is too small.

If you are interested in certifying your yard or just finding out more about environmentally friendly features such as composting, butterfly gardens, backyard water features, or native wildflowers, don’t miss this tour.

There will be displays about community vegetable gardens, sustainable and eco-friendly gardening practices, bees and beehives maintenance, composting, and native plants.

Begin your tour at 69 Grove Street in Montclair. Complete lists of tour sites and applications for NWF habitat certification will be available at this location. For descriptions of participating habitats and more information on the Montclair Backyard Habitat Project, visit www.montclairwildlife.com.