Four years ago, Melody Murray started noticing these cute signs in her Portland, Oregon, neighborhood of Sullivan’s Gulch. Posted in residents’ front yards, the signs read: “Certified Backyard Habitat” with a drawing of a black, red and white spotted towhee sitting on a leafy branch. “I didn’t know what they were for,” says the Ohio native who moved to Oregon in 1994.
Her curiosity piqued, she went online and quickly found out: The Backyard Habitat Certification began as a joint project of Columbia Land Trust and Portland Audubon (now called the Bird Alliance of Oregon ) to encourage urban residents to garden without pesticides, plant native plants and remove invasive species. As Reasons to be Cheerful reports, all of these practices support a flourishing community of native birds, insects and other wildlife. When Murray lucked into a one-acre property in the Cully neighborhood in 2021, she joined the Facebook group Friends of Backyard Habitats, where she lurked for a while until she felt ready to sign up.
Because she and her partner had already cleared away invasive plants like ivy and vinca (periwinkles) — and planted an array of native trees, shrubs and plants — they got certified at the Silver level as soon as the Backyard Habitat technician could come for a site visit. “It was super easy for me because I had already made an effort to remove the ‘bad guys,'” says Murray, who was already a skilled gardener. “There were other bad guys.
But I had en.