MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Tiny plots full of flowers, herbs and trees are cropping up in America's cities, often along sidewalks and other public spaces. As NPR's Julie Depenbrock reports, the small gardens have big environmental benefits.
JULIE DEPENBROCK, BYLINE: On a street median in Washington, D.C., is one of more than 30 neighborhood tree boxes, pocket gardens, where native plants thrive and create a little oasis in the city.
JOHN BURNHAM: We're in an urban environment here (laughter).
DEPENBROCK: That's John Burnham (ph). He's a retired federal worker and volunteer gardener in D.C.'s Mount Pleasant neighborhood.
BURNHAM: I brought some mountain mint, which was the Plant of the Year last year for native plants.
DEPENBROCK: Mountain mint, which grows in the Appalachian Mountains, is prolific, says Stella Tarnay.
STELLA TARNAY: Once you plant it, it's going to spread. But it's one of the best plants that you can plant in your yard if you want to support pollinators.
DEPENBROCK: Tarnay is the executive director of Capital Nature, a local nonprofit assisting in the neighborhood effort.
TARNAY: When you put in the native plants, they create these wonderful little root systems that aerate the soil. They attract insects, beetles, worms, not only the charismatic pollinators. And they also bury into the earth. They make it organic. They create air tunnels.
DEPENBROCK: The area where we're standing right now, Burnham says, is an urban heat island, which gets hotter than the surrounding area due to the presence of heat-absorbing materials like asphalt and concrete. Adding greenery can bring down the temperature.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPADE DIGGING)
DEPENBROCK: Burnham gets to work planting the mountain mint and watering the garden.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
DEPENBROCK: The tiny plot contains golden alexander, phlox and columbine, among other plants that will bloom throughout the year. Tarnay says she's amazed what you can invite into a small space like this.
TARNAY: This is basically just a hop-over median on the way to the liquor store for many people. But in this little box, there's so much life that's starting to go on. And we take up so much space in the urban environment, we humans. So why not give over a little spot to the plants and the birds and the bugs and share our environment with them?
DEPENBROCK: Kate Brown is an environmental historian at MIT and the author of "Tiny Gardens Everywhere." She says many cities have become hot spots for biodiversity.
KATE BROWN: Mostly because these tiny, green spaces dotted throughout an urban and suburban territory offer refuge for all kinds of birds and animals and insects that they don't get in the countryside, which is continually being bombed by things like insecticides and pesticides.
DEPENBROCK: Back in D.C., Burnham says there's so much that feels out of his control to change the way the world is.
BURNHAM: Can't we create a little bit of joy in our own neighborhood here? That's the idea.
DEPENBROCK: Julie Depenbrock, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF COURTNEY BARNETT SONG, "AVANT GARDENER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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