As housing becomes a higher priority on the Olympic Peninsula, the balance between the environment and livability wobbles.

It’s a delicate equilibrium that the Growth Management Act hoped to help. That decades-old bill is still debated to this day, especially as demand for housing grows.

With a number of new projects in the works to meet that demand, the scales start to sway.

For instance, the Madrona Ridge housing project in Port Townsend north of the Discovery Road roundabout recently obtained a Critical Area Permit to pave over and modify wetlands which have already become scarce.

But those single-family houses are needed, so what’s there to do?

One solution is to convert lawns and yards for both new and old homes into Certified Wildlife Habitats.

“Plant with a purpose,” is the motto of the National Wildlife Federation’s program that aims to sustainably provide wildlife with food, water, cover, and places to raise young right alongside humanity.

Their website provides an easy to follow checklist to guide homeowners through the process.

The list to qualify might seem daunting at first with three food resources, two kinds of cover for wildlife, two places to for them to raise young, one clean water source, and two sustainable practices used to maintain it all.

However, leaving one fallen tree in your yard can cover much of that in one fell swoop: It’s an organic practice that’s a source of food for birds to pick bugs from, and both a cover and place for wildlife to raise their young.

The $20 cost to apply for certification not only goes toward helping the program raise awareness, but also includes a one-year membership in the National Wildlife Federation and subscription to National Wildlife magazine.

If that sounds too wild, a rain garden is a beautiful option.

“Most people’s needs first and foremost: people want low maintenance,” said Joe Holtrop, district manager for the Jefferson County Conservation District, while discussing rain garden and native plant landscaping classes he has led in the past.

Holtrop has been working in landscape architecture utilizing native plants since 1989.

To make a rain garden, homeowners use native plants in the right soil to filter pollutants out of the water that runs off from roads and driveways to help out marine wildlife. Rain gardens can be a more attractive addition by incorporating flowers like Western columbine and red-flowering currant to raise both sustainability and property value.

According to Sound Impacts’ website, which tracks rain gardens around the Sound, there are currently 19 rain gardens in Port Townsend that manage nearly 14 million gallons of runoff each year.

Holtrop recently joined the local district and had hoped to begin landscaping classes here in the spring, but has had to push that back to the fall due to the pandemic.

“We had more people signing up than we could accommodate,” Holtrop said about the popularity of his previous workshops in Clallam County.

Of course, a rain garden and the use of native plants also fall under the list of sustainable practices needed for wildlife habitat certification. It could be the perfect place to start a journey towards sustainability to build on later if it turns into a labor of love.

For more information on Certified Wildlife Habitats go to nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildlife/Certify or to learn more about rain gardens try extension.wsu.edu/raingarden.

To connect with Holtrop about his upcoming workshops, contact jholtrop@jeffersoncd.org.