The Ecology Action Center hosts a Yard Smart Garden Walk every summer (typically in mid-July).
This free tour highlights beautiful and functional yards in our community that protect our environment, benefit wildlife, and use few or no synthetic chemicals. The tour features home and small business/non-profit/public facility gardens of different styles. Participants tour all the gardens together and then gather together at the end for lunch and a short presentation from a guest speaker.
The Yard Smart program promotes a more sustainable approach to lawn and garden maintenance. Working with nature to build a healthier ecosystem in both the soil below ground, the yard above ground, and reducing pollutants that runoff into our local water supplies will create a more beautiful, sustainable and safer environment for everyone— children and adults, pets and wildlife. The program encourages local homeowners to reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, to conserve natural resources such as water and fossil fuels, and to make room for wildlife in their yards. Yard Smart Certification recognizes local homeowners who use ecologically sustainable practices in maintaining their yards and who realize that their lawn, garden and landscaping decisions affect the health of the whole community.
If you have a garden you would like featured on a future Yard Smart Garden Walk, please contact Larissa Armstrong at 309-454-3169 x15 or [email protected].
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED FOR THE 2023 Yard Smart Garden Walk. Please join us in 2024!
The event is free, but our staff works hard to make this event happen, so we do encourage donations to help offset the cost of the event and to help the Ecology Action Center continue its efforts to promote a healthy local environment!