In summer 2021, my neighbor sent me a text with a picture of an unusual bird wading in the marsh below his deck. You had to take note, as there are just no big pink birds local to Connecticut. Indeed, that bird—a roseate spoonbill—is typically a resident of Florida and tropics further south. Likely sent off course from a storm that blew it up the coast, it is somehow appropriate to elicit that recollection in a conversation about how our climate is changing in New England.

An unusually hot series of late summer days in 2023 dramatically impacted a healthy stand of emergent pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata), Salmon Cove, East Haddam, CT.

Global climate change is not a future problem. In the northeast, we are already experiencing wetter and warmer winters, with increasingly hotter and drier summer months. Assessments have confirmed that we are, in fact, warming faster than any other region in the lower forty-eight states. Scientists predict that by the end of this century Connecticut’s climate and ecosystem will more closely resemble more temperate, southern states such as Virginia and the Carolinas—not quite Florida, but you get the idea. These shifts are beginning to change what many of us have come to love about New England: its distinctive seasons.

Despite the realities of climate disruption, there are ways that we can address and become a collective solution toward mediating the recent and projected increases in the amount, intensity, and persistence of these changes. But first, let’s look more closely at the implications.

What Change Looks Like
By 2017, five of the six New England states had already warmed by about three degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, with only Vermont staying slightly cooler on average. That has translated into wetter and warmer winters with less snow (and snowpack) and more rain, resulting in earlier snowmelt-related runoff and lower spring peak stream flows.

While this has obvious implications for stormwater runoff, the change in historically predictable first frost and frost-free dates can damage plant and, ultimately, insect growth. Early emergence from winter dormancy (when a plant starts to grow) can result in dieback from subsequent cold spells, a loss over time to cold tolerance, and reduced seasonal growth. Early spring bud break followed by hard freezes also damages economically important fruit crops.

Burning bush (Euonymous alatus) is only one of many non-native invasive shrubs still available commercially. This species and others native in more temperate environs are expected to thrive in our warming climate.

There are key implications for our landscape, including our gardens and community and regional open spaces, as a result of these deviations. Changing temperature variables that shift biological timing can mess with long-standing ecological interactions. If leaves and/or flowers emerge noticeably sooner or later than historical seasonal timeframes, that can impact time-honored relationships between pollinators, seed dispersers (including birds), and herbivores.

For example, this “decoupling” of resources can have dire consequences for insects, many of which have a limited ability to migrate. A significant portion of our specialist ground-nesting native bees time their nest emergence to coincide with the appearance of specific flowers.

Another looming downside is the marked advantage that a warming climate can give to invasive species (both plant and insect pests) that are readily capable of expanding their ranges in the absence of harsh winters. Pathogens (including fungi, bacteria, and nematodes), pests, and even common weeds are especially liable to be more successful in warmer temperatures. This prospect can indirectly enhance the demand for and use of herbicides and pesticides.

Here’s What You Can Do
What we plant, how we manage our soil, and the amendments that we choose—and refuse to use—in our home and community landscapes is essential.

Native plants, now thankfully becoming a part of our common lexicon, still don’t make up a significant percentage of our local landscapes. And yet we know that plants that evolved with our natural ecosystems are essential to providing the resources that introduced plants cannot. Keeping the food web healthy and our landscapes, both local and regional, diverse and connected is a fundamental means of ensuring resilience in the face of a changing climate while offsetting more climate change impacts.

Healthy woodland soil contains abundant organic material and fungal strands, both of which feed plant and soil animal life and sequester carbon.

By growing, sharing, and protecting native plants (and ecosystems) we are also battling climate change. Native plants in vegetated buffers along wetlands and waterbodies, in local community parks and open space, and in our neighborhoods, absorb pollution, absorb carbon (a climate warming gas), generate oxygen, moderate local climate, and buffer severe storms.

Plant a variety, and in groups. Variety is key to ensure flowers throughout the growing season, and this diversity provides resilience in your garden. Planting as many types of plants as you can will provide a buffer against this changing phenology. Planting groups of the same plant means pollinators can get what they need without expending a lot of energy searching, while also efficiently cross-pollinating your flowering plants.

Start with keystone plants—the most productive plants for the most productive insects, according to Homegrown National Park (homegrownnationalpark.org), courtesy of native plant icon and entomologist Doug Tallamy and friends. Think big, but don’t be afraid to start small.

Think of your soil as habitat for our less visible wildlife. The benefits of a multitude of microorganisms, fungi, and macroinvertebrates are legion; they play a vital role in slowly processing and making available essential plant nutrients. The soil also holds 83 percent of your garden’s carbon, stashed in roots, decomposing plant matter, and in the bodies of those unseen soil residents. Sequestering carbon below ground is another of your garden’s superpowers in the quest to address climate change.

And along that same vein, keep your soil carbon intact (rather than releasing it into the atmosphere by roto-tilling or double-digging—two things I used to do in my garden). Use a cover crop through the winter, and keep plant roots in the soil as much as you can throughout the growing season as a living mulch. Mulch can also consist of aged manure, crumpled leaves, straw, or seaweed. It helps keep moisture in place and, if applied after the first hard frost, will keep soil temperatures evenly cool to avoid frost heaving—a tool increasingly important for the vagaries of our springtime weather as well.

Reimagine Your Lawn. The chemically intensive traditional lawn exacts a hefty climate toll. Inorganic fertilizer is made from unsustainable fossil fuels, and its manufacture generates a sizable amount of heat-trapping pollution which is the primary cause of climate change. The amount of fertilizer needed by plants decreases as the organic matter content of the soil increases, and the organic matter is where the bulk of carbon sequestration occurs.

Keystone native plants include goldenrods and asters that are likely to continue to be essential and resilient members of New England plant communities.

And finally, make your landscape as climate-friendly as possible by choosing to forego pesticides. Each year in the US, more than a billion pounds of pesticides are applied across home gardens, parks, and farms, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Ninety-nine percent of all synthetic chemicals, which include pesticides, are derived from fossil fuels.

Climate change is a global issue, but people are local, and solutions can be local too. While it may feel as though catastrophe is inevitable (due in part to the focus on disasters rather than solutions), everyone has a role to play, including in our backyards and community landscapes. Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can!

Judy Preston is a local ecologist active in the Connecticut River Estuary.