Community health is the reason that boreal and Amazonian forests, as well as wetlands, prairies, woodlands and savannas are able to store so much carbon, naturally. These interactions also enable short and long-term carbon sequestration. The complex ecological relationships and interactions among these community members literally create and maintain the conditions they themselves need in order to flourish. Maximum carbon sequestration occurs when multiple species of plants with similar cultural needs form a community with each other, other organisms, and the denizens of the living soil in which they grow. As I have learned about the ways that plants form ecological communities, I have come to understand that soil management requires attention to garden design and plant palettes as well. Tried and true management techniques such as adding compost, mulching appropriately in garden beds and around trees, and reducing digging and tilling are vitally important, even fundamental practices when it comes to building healthy soil that develops and maintains good texture, storing carbon both short and long term. As soil scientist and soil carbon sequestration proponent Christine Jones has said, almost anything done to improve soil health and structure will also increase carbon in the soil. So how can gardeners sequester carbon on their own property? It starts with healthy soil. Scientists calculate that these low tech methods could d raw down over a third of global carbon emissions by 2030, while simultaneously rescuing ecosystems, strengthening biodiversity, managing water, and mitigating pollution. These days, as we search for ways to pull excess carbon out of the atmosphere in order to mitigate global warming, new attention has focused on “natural climate solutions,” or managing land for carbon sequestration by conserving and restoring ecosystems and changing agricultural and gardening practices. Organic carbon sequestration is one of the oldest tricks in nature’s ancient playbook for global ecosystem regulation.
BEST GRASSES FOR CARBON SEQUESTRATION SERIES
Thus, what follows is more in the way of a general discussion that might help point in the right direction than a series of rigid prescriptions. Everything depends on where the gardener lives and the conditions in which they are gardening. Carbon gardening in northern Illinois, where I live, differs from carbon gardening in other regions each will require region-specific strategies and plant palettes. Gardeners new to the concept of carbon gardening often ask these two questions: What good soil management strategies will help maximize carbon sequestration? And, what would be a good plant palette to help accomplish this? Good questions both, to which I wish I could give detailed, specific answers. In summer, the native plant gardens at the UW Arboretum sequester carbon while adding beauty and habitat.
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