Description
If you have not already visited the Habitat Certification Page, you can do that and return here after you have read more about certification requirements. Since this is non-refundable, it is iimportant that you understand the requirements and feel fairly confident that you are at least close to meeting them.
- Objective of Habitat Certification: Promote maintenance of diverse native plant habitat.
- “Diverse” – at least three species in each of four types of plants (trees, shrubs, vines, etc.).
- “Maintenance” – ecologically sustainable practices and active management of invasive plants.
- Two certification levels differ mainly by the proportion of the plantable property occupied by well-established native plants.
- Gold: 2/3 native plants; Silver 1/3 native plants (averaged across the entire plantable area)
- “Plantable” property includes lawn, but excludes home, drive, paths, and agricultural area (vegetable garden). So non-native lawn (almost all lawn in Georgia) counts against your proportion of native plants.
- “Occupied” by native plants does not include mulched areas largely devoid of plants (which also counts against your proportion of native plants)
- “Established” – at least one year post-planting
- Certification is not for everyone.
- Minimum area: We try to be flexible, but the “plantable” area, with its required percentage of native plants, needs to be ecologically significant. This tends to make it increasingly harder to qualify for properties that are much smaller than a quarter acre, or even larger ones that have extensive buildings and hardscape.
- HOA restrictions: GNPS can help you in other ways, including other signage and advocacy efforts. Contact us!
As it notes there, this is a four-step process:
- Pay certification application fee,
- Receive a link to an application form,
- Submit the form (first making sure your membership in GNPS is current), and
- Work with the certification team when they contact you.
You are taking step 1 here. Immediately following this will be step 2. In order to do that, it is important that you get the download link for the application form from either the screen that follows payment completion OR the "Purchase Acknowledgement" email that you will receive.
Please include a certiļ¬cation program fee of $40 for either level of certification, done on this page. You must be a member of GNPS to participate!
