Landscape Stewardship vs. Maintenance: What’s the difference?

Maintenance is static. Stewardship is dynamic.

Maintenance is action oriented towards results.

Stewardship is reaction oriented towards resilience.

With half a decade of professional land care, and many decades of personal land care, its an undeniable truth that our landscapes are not the same season-over-season. They are living, changing ecosystems, and to prevent them from growing and changing and responding to the surrounding environment is to fight a losing battle.

If you’ve been living in your home for more than 10 years, I would bet a tree that was once small casts shade over your formerly sun-drenched space. OR perhaps your shady backyard has had a recent shift due to beech leaf disease, or some other environmental circumstances that required your intervention…

This is the difference between stewardship and maintenance. When we steward, we respond and interact with curiosity and grace, rather than force and expectation of the same outcome time and time again. We shift our thinking from individual tasks - weeding, fertilizing, watering - to a whole system approach - drought conditions, pest pressure, soil quality.

There is interdependence in our landscapes, and we are key players.

Residential landscapes cover nearly 30% of the land area in the continental United States, creating an enormous opportunity to support biodiversity when designed and maintained with intention. (BioScience Journal, “Residential Landscapes and Biodiversity,” Oxford University Press)

When we interact intentionally, with a broader lens on how our interactions impact outcomes, we are able to support functions of soil health, water retention, habitat preservation and pollinator health at a massive scale.

So what does this look like?

• Incorporate soil health into your land care plan

• Proactively plan for the lifecycles of pollinators

• Act with intention at critical points during the season, rather than taking the same approach all year long

• Facilitate the growth of diverse species in your landscape! Don’t just pull anything you didn’t plant… get to know native plants and learn WHY they may be showing up in your space

Every new condition you observe is a reaction to something - get curious!

Ultimately, stewardship reduces inputs, creates long term resilience as the natural system is allowed to thrive, and builds resilience in the caretaker as you learn more about the world around you and how it is asking you to interact with it.

Through stewardship you will foster a long term relationship with your space. Benefits will compound, you and your landscape will adapt and you’ll see resilience as the landscape matures.

Stewardship is responsible land care.

It treats landscapes as living systems that change, respond, and mature over time. When we observe first and act with intention, we reduce inputs, strengthen soil, and build resilience that compounds year after year.

At Reimagined Roots, stewardship guides how we care for every landscape we touch.

Want to learn more about our Landscape Stewardship approach?