100 Resilient Yards Project
in South Portland, Maine
South Portland, Maine, with a population of 25,000, is a popular destination for young families who value walkability, access to outdoor recreation spaces, and healthy communities.
That's why in 2023, the City of South Portland Sustainability Department — in partnership with Healthy Babies Bright Futures — launched their 100 Resilient Yards project that provided technical expertise and resources to transform 100 residential and commercial spaces into resilient, organic landscapes.
Children face much higher hazards than adults from pesticide exposure due to their small size and developing organ systems. They are also more likely to accidentally ingest pesticide residues while playing on or near the ground.
South Portland's application process for the 100 Resilient Yards program only lasted for a month, and by the end of the application period, the city had received more than 400 applications.
The final 100 sites were selected by a committee of project partners keeping in mind geography, site challenges, and available resources for installations.
Each chosen yard received an analysis of soil health and landscape conditions, along with recommendations of what needed to be done to transform it into one of five different yardscapes:
🐝 pollinator garden
🌧️ rain garden
🍅 vegetable garden
🌳 native planting
🌱 organic lawn
Step by Step: South Portland's Process
- Once the 100 yards were chosen, each chosen yard received an analysis of soil health and landscape conditions.
2. South Portland hosted a volunteer training to educate and empower the volunteers who would help with planting, gardening, and other tasks. These volunteers, who are part of the master gardener program, are required to complete volunteer hours in order to remain in the program.
“Our volunteers showed up, then they showed up for more, and then they just continued to show up for us again and again.”
3. Volunteers came out to each home and spent more than an hour at each location. Together, they planted, landscaped, and built beautiful, environmentally friendly yards for residents.
We followed the teams at various locations, including a pollinator garden, a natural planting, and an organic lawn.
For the incredible before-and-afters — and how we got there — read more below!
"As a homeowner, this experience was fantastic! We learned so much from the technical analysis, then the volunteers pitched in to turn what would have been a day-long project into something we completed together in an hour!"
WESTBROOK ST.
POLLINATOR GARDEN
More than 25 homeowners added pollinator gardens to their yards during this project, including Betsy Harding from Organic Roots Salon.
The transformation to a more resilient yard was a natural next step for Organic Roots Salon, a 100% plant-based and green circle certified salon — and Maine’s first completely cruelty-free and vegan salon.
Because Organic Roots' mission is to balance customer satisfaction with environmentally conscious service, leveraging native plantings to create a thriving, sustainable habitat was a perfect fit.
POLLINATOR GARDENS
Pollinator gardens are designed with the goal of providing the plants and habitat that our various pollinators need to thrive.
Pollinators include a variety of animals such as beetles, flies, wasps, butterflies, moths, and bees. These pollinators will seek out the most nutrient-rich food rewards, being the pollen and nectar.
Pollen is a protein-rich food source, which forms the diet of larval bees, while nectar, a mix of carbohydrates and water, provides a sugar-rich food source to adult bees and butterflies.
By creating a pollinator garden, you are creating a habitat. Habitats designed for pollinators will inevitably attract a wide array of additional wildlife. Habitat is most successful when it is in large and contiguous patches.
In a yard, this means observing the landscape beyond property lines, and understanding how a pollinator garden fits within the ecosystem.
The plants one chooses for the garden depend on a variety of factors, including:
🌱 soil type
☀️ sunlight
💧 soil moisture
🐝 target species
Native plants should always be prioritized!
Sheet mulching is used to 'solarize' or remove grass and other plants from the planting area. In this case, cardboard was used. Plants are placed directly into cutouts in the cardboard, which helps reduce weed pressure.
A completed Pollinator Garden includes this aged bark mulch added on top of the cardboard so the cardboard will ultimately biodegrade into the soil.
Creating pollinator gardens is one of the best ways to increase biodiversity because they not only serve as a food source, but they also support the life cycles of a variety of wildlife species.
By creating a pollinator garden, you are creating a habitat.
SOUTH PORTLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY
NATIVE PLANTINGS
Nearly 25 native planting sites were chosen in South Portland, and their success was thanks to collaboration between the homeowners, the volunteers, and strategic partners across the city.
While experts Kevin Davis and Amren Frechette evaluated the South Portland Public Library's landscaping to analyze the best spots for the plantings, other partners were hard at work behind the scenes as well.
Because this project used large quantities of compost, mulch, and native plantings, local businesses donated supplies through in-kind donations.
The support of partners included
- Maine Audubon
- Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
- Wild Seed Project
- Garbage to Garden
- Broadway Gardens
- Friends of Casco Bay
- Osborne Organics
- South Portland Stormwater, Sustainability, and Conservation
- Cooperative Extension
- Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District
Some partner organizations donated time or expertise while others donated compost, bags of mulch, or even plants like vegetable seeds and seedlings, fruit trees, and native plant seeds.
Ultimately, partnership and collaboration were key drivers of success for this project — an undertaking so large couldn't be done alone!
NATIVE PLANTING
Native plants offer countless benefits beyond their four-season beauty:
💨 purifying air
🪭 shading and cooling cities
🌎 storing atmospheric carbon
💦 minimizing flooding and stormwater runoff
🦆 sustaining vital pollinators, birds, and other wildlife
Shrinking a lawn to half of its original size over time will create more space for native, wildlife-friendly plantings and reduce the need for constant mowing, watering, and fertilizing.
Another key to success is planting native trees and other native plants!
Many native tree species like oaks, willows, poplars, cherries, birches, and maples support hundreds of species of moths and butterflies in their caterpillar stages.
As these caterpillars forage on the tree leaves of their host plants, they provide a vital protein source for reproducing songbirds.
Small flowering and fruiting trees are tough plants that fit into more compact spaces and provide pollinators, birds, small mammals, and people with delectable treats throughout the year.
Adding layers of native shrubs, ground covers, vines, and other plants will add diversity to your plantings and create cover, forage, and protection for a variety of wildlife species.
"Green spaces full of native plants do not need any harmful chemicals to maintain. It's vital to limit exposures to toxic chemicals and also healthy to be around plants!"
Native plantings are a great fit for the sandy (and potentially salty) soils in South Portland.
Additional native seed plants can be added in the fall to give the space a head-start for spring germination.
From shrinking lawn sizes to planting native trees to leaving leaves, there are many simple actions that can make yards and neighborhoods more biodiverse and climate-resilient.
STANLEY ST.
RAIN GARDEN
Of all the yards that got makeovers, six of them were transformed into rain gardens, including Dave Reidmiller's.
When Reidmiller first read about the City's 100 Resilient Yards initiative, it piqued his interest because he already enjoys landscaping by integrating natural and native elements. The idea of a rain garden seemed like a great opportunity to deal with the stormwater run-off and flooding while getting professional advice and help in the process.
Doing his part — however small — to control stormwater runoff into Portland Harbor is something Reidmiller values.
"Being part of a community and having everyone do their part to contribute to a healthy community ecosystem is so important," Reidmiller says.
As a climate scientist, Reidmiller pays particular attention to patterns and trends in weather conditions. The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events is an impact of climate change that is somewhat unique to the Northeast region of the U.S.
His home is at the bottom of a gentle (but noticeable) hill, which means that he sees the impacts of these heavier rainfall events — with debris landing on his lawn and occasionally even water accumulating in the basement.
Since installing a rain garden with 100 Resilient Yards, a significant portion of that runoff has been directed into it, virtually eliminating those adverse impacts.
RAIN GARDENS
Rain Gardens have two major environmental benefits.
Firstly, they slow and retain runoff, which reduces flooding and erosion associated with peak storm flows.
Secondly, they filter runoff, removing pollutants and improving water quality. In addition, they are attractive additions to the landscape, relatively inexpensive, and easy to install.
Rain gardens are often placed in a preexisting or created depression within a lawn, or in a location that receives roof runoff from a downspout.
Preparation for a rain garden includes removing roughly 6 inches of topsoil for water runoff and catchment.
Plants that are tolerant of water and runoff pollutants make a perfect fit for this space.
Planted with grasses and flowering perennials, rain gardens can be a cost-effective and beautiful way to reduce runoff from a property.
WHAT WAS
THE IMPACT?
This project touched 100 yards, but it touched exponentially more community members.
South Portland's Sustainability Director, Julie Rosenbach, said that while community-building was one of the expected by-products of 100RY, it became so much more than just an outcome of the project.
"The community-building aspect is the first thing people list as a benefit of this program," she says.
For Reidmiller, who now fields questions from neighbors walking by and chats with fellow South Portlanders about the project's impacts, a newfound sense of community is apparent.
"It's been a ton of fun talking to neighbors walking by and answering their questions," says Reidmiller. "I also get to learn about the things they've done in their own yards to improve the health and vitality of South Portland's natural environment."
By investing in the health of these 100 diverse and public-facing yards and encouraging all of our residents to do the same, South Portland invested in the health of their community members, especially children who will have safer lawns to play on, learn to tend organic gardens, and grow up listening to the chorus of birds and bees.
“People getting their hands dirty in the ground and planting plants together is the best connection you can make.”
HOW TO
REPLICATE THIS PROJECT
This project was a big lift for both the city and the volunteers. But it was worth it, says Rosenbach. Here are her tips for replicating a project like 100 Resilient Yards:
- Budget properly. Thanks to in-kind donations from local businesses and a total budget of $80,000, South Portland had more than enough funding to cover the 100 yards.
A few things were well worth spending money on, Julie says:
💻 graphic design and branding for the initiative
📸 a photographer to document progress
🌵 native plants, compost, and mulch from local businesses - Focus most heavily on the resources that people need: plants, compost, and partnerships.
If you can communicate why the community should do this — and then provide them with the how-to resources and guidance (through volunteers and experts supporting them) — not only will the community buy into the work, but they'll continue to keep it going by passing on their knowledge to their neighbors and friends. - Pay attention to the details that can help you maximize impact.
For example, having five yardscape options for residents to choose from was too many, Julie says as she reflects on her learnings. "I'd focus on fewer options and just offer the native planting, rain garden, and vegetable gardens."
Ensuring adequate time to manage the whole process — from applications to assessments to planting — during the right season for planting is another key to success. Scheduling the project took longer than expected, so the South Portland team felt tight on time when it came to the seasons changing.
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