Native Plant Habitat Certification

Certification Requirements

Silver

• 1/3 of the entire property grounds in native plants representing 4 (four) or more categories listed below. There must be a minimum of 3 species in each of the four categories.
• No cultivated Category 1-2 invasive plants and invasive plants must be in the process of being actively eradicated.
• 4 out of 8 sustainable gardening practices (below).
• In general, the habitat should be established for at least a year before being certified.

Gold

• 2/3 of the entire property grounds in native plants representing 4 (four) or more categories listed below. There must be a minimum of 3 species in each of the four categories.
• No cultivated Category 1-3 invasive plants and invasive plants must be in the process of being actively eradicated.
• 4 out of 8 sustainable gardening practices (below).
• In general, the habitat should be established for at least a year before being certified.

Native Plant Categories

•  trees,
• shrubs,
• perennials,
• annuals,
• vines,
• ferns/mosses/lichens,
• grasses/sedges,
• water/bog plants.

Sustainable Gardening Practices

• Have features that support wildlife
• Practice composting
• Avoid using herbicides and pesticides
• Capture and use rainwater
• Use soaker hoses
• Minimize lawn areas
• Mulch or allow leaves to remain
• Reduce use of fossil-fuel-powered lawn equipment

Are you ready?

This not a casual self-certification program like you may have experienced with other organizations. It emphasizes a significant contribution to the local ecosystem with minimal impact of invasive species. Specifically, note also that if you are actively cultivating any Category 1 or 2 invasive plants, as listed by the Georgia Exotic Plant Pest Council: https://gainvasivespeciescouncil.org/list/invasive-plants/, GNPS will not certify your site. Some of the more common plants on this list are: privet (Ligustrum), kudzu (Pueraria montana), Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis), Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), mimosa (Albizia julibrissin), English ivy (Hedera helix), autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora), bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon), monkeygrass (Liriope muscari), and chinaberry (Melia azedarach).

• You must be a member of GNPS to participate.
• You must not be cultivating any Category 1 or 2 invasive plants (Silver level) or you must not be cultivating any Category 1, 2, or 3 invasive plants (Gold level)
• You must know the size of your property and have a rough sketch of how it is planted, with approximate dimensions of buildings, hardscape, and planted areas (especially large non-native areas such as lawns)
• You must be able to identify the required number of different native plant species on your property (more details here)

Certification is not for everyone. You may face homeowner’s association restrictions, or have only a small plantable area, and we do require a significant number of native plants. If you have a significant traditional lawn area, that counts against the percentage of native plants. GNPS has other suggestions for you to show your support of native plants if you cannot qualify for certification or if you are early in the process, such as displaying yard banners which are available in our online store.

Take a look at the detailed requirements for certification. If you are reasonably confident, continue with the steps to gather information that you will need for the application.

Still not sure? It may help to look at some posts of certified properties, or to attend an organized visit to a certified property (watch your chapter events).

Gather Information

It can be difficult for you (and even more for the certifier) to understand what percentage of your property is occupied by native plants. Some information will be required for the application, and you should have it all available before you begin the application.

1. Understand your lot

If you have a plot plan of your property, often a part of the purchase documents for a home, it will greatly simplify this step. If not, make a rough sketch similar to the one included here. You may find it helpful to start with an image from Zillow or your county records. (Hint: Go to your county property tax web site, or do an internet search on “[County] GIS,” where [County] is your county.

Include the lot boundaries, as well as the buildings and hardscape that are present on the property. It is not shown in this example, but you should also sketch the approximate location of all distinct planted areas, including lawns, foundation plantings, dedicated gardens, tree/shrub islands, and forested areas. Put approximate dimensions on each area. You can simply count the number of paces along each side of an area, multiply it by two, and that will be the approximate dimension in feet.

Finally, check some of this against property records. If your county tax records include acreage, then take the area in square feet of the lot, divide it by 43,560, and that should approximately match the acreage in property records. For example, the image above shows a rectangular lot that is 100 ft. by 200 ft., corresponding to an area of 20,000 sq. ft..  If you divide 20,000 by 43,560, the result is about 0.45, or just under 0.5 acre.

2. Record some values

Using the sketch you just created, record the following, with all values in square feet:

• Total area of the lot (in the example above, 20,000)
• Area occupied by all buildings (in the example above, 2500)
• Area occupied by all hardscape (in the example above, 1000+1500, or 2500)
• Area occupied by lawn (not shown in example above, but let’s say that there is 5000 sq. ft. in the front and side yards, while most of the back is forest and garden)
• Area used entirely for agricultural purposes (let’s say that this property has a small vegetable garden of 200 sq. ft.)
• Area that is not plantable for reasons you cannot control, such as easements. (In the sketch above, if the strip on the left were such an easement, it would be about 400 sq. ft.)

3. Evaluate your native plant content

Considering all the land not included above as buildings, hardscape, lawn, agriculture, or unplantable for other reasons, estimate the percentage of native plants on the average over that area of land. This is tricky, but make your best estimate. You may have different percentages over different areas of land, but you can combine them as a weighted average. For example, if you have about half this area as a naturalized forest at 100% native planting, while the rest is mostly native, but has significant paths and mulched areas that reduce the percentage to about 60%, then a reasonable estimate might be 80% overall (the average of 100% and 60%, because the two areas are of similar size).

For the purposes of these estimates, you may wonder what is 100%. Some examples of 100% are:

• a naturalized forest, with the expected amount of understory shrubs and small woodland plants (all native),
• a meadow of entirely native plants,
• a dense native perennial garden, or
• a mulched area of trees and shrubs, spaced with enough room for them to grow to maturity, and with other plants intermixed at ground level, or
• a mix of the above.

You may have an area landscaped for aesthetic purposes, such as a foundation planting area, that has only about half as many native plants as it could support. There is nothing wrong with that, but you should consider it to be only 50% native and factor that into your overall average.

4. Make a list of your native plants

Record the botanical name and optionally, a common name, for each plant that you wish to use to qualify for certification. [THIS AREA MAY CHANGE, IF WE ALTER OUR 12 plants in 4 categories rule).

5. Continue with the application

If you have not recorded any data that makes you skeptical about meeting requirements, proceed to purchase the application and fill it out.

Certified Properties

The most recently certified properties are at the top of the list below. There are many more on subsequent pages.