We Champion LI’s Native Plants

Native Plants are essential for creating habitat for our local animals. The Suffolk County News recently profiled our Executive Director Marshall Brown and his yard, which is a showcase for native trees, shrubs, grasses and flowers. 9 different plantings in all on less than half an acre.

The Yard’s Native Plantings

There’s The Bioswale, The Native Forest, The Pollinator Garden, The Rain Garden, The Fire Pit, The Oak Stand, The Willow Stand, The Meadow, and The Front Gardens, all attracting — and feeding — local birds, whose populations are otherwise dwindling, especially among the songbirds. Without native plants, our local birds are starving. What grows here otherwise, plants from other countries, cannot sustain them or the insects upon which they feed.

Touring Our Native Plantings

The yard has been getting a lot of visits via scheduled tours. Schedule one for your group today! Here’s who have visited thus far:

• The Town Of Islip
• Cornell Cooperative Extension, Suffolk County
• The Greater Sayville Civic Association
• The Sayville Garden Club
• The Bayport / Bluepoint Heritage Association

Native Plants Tours Coming Up (Dates TBD)

The Sayville Library, The Greater Sayville Chamber of Commerce.

The American Chestnut: Restoring a Native

For the fall, The Long Island Conservancy is committed to planting American Chestnuts on the grounds of the library and around Chamber House as part of our broader effort to restore these magnificent and ecologically important trees, now all but extinct.

Our approach throughout is local. We help communities become good local stewards of their open spaces — their parks and main streets — and of course of their yards. By engaging with civic organizations, with our neighbors, we can help bring about a new way of understanding nature, one where we are not at all separate from it, where it can be found right outside our front door.

Click below to read Marshall’s Profile in The Suffolk County News:

“Returning The Land To The Natives: Local environmentalist’s lawn thrives with Long Island plants” — Suffolk County News, August 17th, 2022