Even if the daily mail doesn't amount to much, a cheerful mailbox garden stamps you as First Class in the neighborhood. It's also a fun gardening opportunity.

Mailboxes perched on posts at the curb give you a chance to create a postage-stamp garden design. Think of the mailbox as a piece of functional sculpture that gives your little garden both a focal point and a vertical element. Then design around it, choosing hard-working plants that will thrive in the usually rather challenging conditions at the curb.

A mailbox on a sturdy post must be front and center in your design. It can stand no more than eight inches from the curb, according to U.S. Postal Service recommendations. To make the best impression on the mail carrier and everyone else who passes by, the garden around the box should look attractive year round. You might start with a couple of small evergreen shrubs, as a conifer collector in Norfolk, Virginia, did when she designed her mailbox garden. Her evergreens anchor the plantings, are in perfect proportion, and give the bed definition even in the winter. Dwarf conifers are a good choice because they grow slowly: They will never overwhelm the space.

A gardener in Madison, Wisconsin, who favors naturalistic landscaping and has a meadow in her backyard, designed a mailbox bed to reflect her gardening style. She created a miniature meadow around her curbside mailbox using just a handful of plants. In a spot less than three feet on a side, she planted short prairie grasses, bright yellow coreopsis, bold purple coneflowers and a drift of black-eyed Susans. None of these plants needs special attention, and the design looks pretty through the winter, when the grasses turn into a tawny backdrop for the bristling black seed heads of coneflowers and black-eyed Susans.

Curbside gardens are not the place for plants that need pampering. Of course, you'll need to water the plants while they become established, but drought tolerance is important when you're choosing plants that must thrive at the end of the driveway, a long distance from the nearest spigot. Mailbox-garden plants are also subject to a lot of wear and tear. Even the most careful mail carrier may drive over plants that creep or flop across the curb, or step on ground covers.

You'll want sturdy plants at the front of the bed, on the street side. Small grasses and tough ground covers such as ajuga or creeping phlox will bounce back from occasional trampling. A ribbon of daylilies set back about six inches from the curb will produce a magnificent show of color through the summer, and if the foliage along the curb is damaged, it will not affect the flowers. Depending on the location of your mailbox and your driveway, you may want to choose plants that grow no more than about two feet tall, so they will not block your view as you pull out of the driveway.

Not all mailbox gardens have to be planted around a post. Sometimes, the garden might be a few steps behind the mailbox itself, forming a living backdrop protected from the challenges of a street-side planting but still reaching out to the neighborhood with a stylish punctuation mark of flowers. Pushing the garden back a little way also allows you to grow taller plants without obstructing mail delivery. This could be an opportunity to include a small tree in the scene, perhaps a spring-blooming magnolia or a crabapple. A gardener near Washington, D.C., made a round bed separated from her mailbox by a strip of grass. She planted a small magnolia in the center and a little cottage garden of perennial flowers around it. The bed looks beautiful from the street and draws the eye further toward plantings in the rest of the garden.

In some neighborhoods, monumental mailboxes are a slightly intimidating presence at the curb. They look more like barricades than small architectural elements around which to plant a garden, but adding just a few plants can soften their appearance. Ornamental grasses are especially effective when planted just behind such massive mailboxes, taking some of the hard edges off a brick pillar. In front, there may be room for a row of liriope, an indestructible plant with leaves that are grasslike, but more sophisticated. It will dress up the base of the pillar, just as foundation plants soften the transition between a house and a garden.

Perennials are classic mailbox garden plants because they come back every year. Chrysanthemums, iris, lavender, spiderwort, sedum, daylilies and phlox will all thrive in a sunny mailbox bed. In a shadier place, ferns, coral bells, lamium and hellebores are surprisingly resilient. Roses are tempting, but plants with thorns might complicate things for the mail carrier.

Supplement the perennials with colorful annual flowers -- zinnias, cleome, pentas, petunias -- that will bloom through the summer. A well-behaved vine, such as clematis, mandevilla or black-eyed Susan vine, will dress up the mailbox post.

Like any garden, a mailbox garden will evolve over the seasons and through the years. Borrow ideas from your regular garden and prowl the neighborhood and the internet for inspiration. Above all, don't let the limited size of a mailbox garden constrain your imagination. Good things come in small packages.

(For editorial questions, please contact Clint Hooker at chooker@amuniversal.com.)

The National Park Service turns 100 this year, and it's something to celebrate in a big way. Visit a park and let the beauty and majesty of nature overwhelm you -- and then take your sense of the uplifting experience home with you. You can't recreate Yosemite or Yellowstone in your backyard, but the powerful lessons of national parks are meaningful even if your own private park is a tiny courtyard in town.

Mark Swartz, a park ranger and coordinator of the NPS centennial, draws a lot of his thinking from Frederick Law Olmsted, the great landscape architect and designer of New York's Central Park and many other important parks. In his writings in the late 19th century, Olmsted actually helped lay the groundwork for the National Park Service, Swartz says.

"He was particularly attuned to the stresses of the urban environment," Swartz says, and "one of the key things was the effect that exposure to landscapes can have on people's physical and emotional health." Olmsted knew that spending time in nature provided relief from the cares of the world. "He really nails it," Swartz says.

Visiting a national park "is like a time-out in your life," Swartz says. Yet parks are not lonely places: They bring people together in discovering nature and their place in it. Naturally, visitors want to hold on to the feelings national parks inspire.

Olmsted understood the spontaneity of nature, which is completely different from designed spaces. For him, a naturalistic garden would be the best private refuge, Swartz says, but "we all have our own interpretations of what inspires us and restores us." There are other cues to follow.

The National Park Service works hard in many ways to set a good example for home gardeners, says Charlie Pepper, an NPS landscape maintenance and sustainability expert. The Park Service has instituted practices to reduce the use of pesticides and other chemicals in parks, for example. "We're managing the quality of plants in our landscapes," Pepper says, and gardeners can do that at home, too.

Native plants and pollinator plants are increasingly important in national parks, Pepper says. Native plants are naturally adapted to local climates and conditions. They are resilient and not likely to require fertilizers or pesticides, and they do not depend on supplemental watering.

The National Park Service also has a pollinator program and establishes plantings with the express purpose of supporting birds, bees, butterflies, bats and other pollinators, whose habitats have been threatened by development and widespread use of pesticides. Pollinator plants and the insects they attract "improve the richness of the plant palette," Pepper says. Among other initiatives, the NPS is monitoring bee diversity in Boston, keeping an inventory of butterflies in the Rocky Mountains, and planting for pollinators to help keep apple trees healthy in the historic orchard at Adams National Historical Park in Massachusetts.

New planting and maintenance practices have also improved experiences for visitors, Pepper says, describing a change at Valley Forge, where many acres of land were once mowed every two weeks during the growing season. Now, native-plant meadows have replaced much of the turf grass, increasing biodiversity in the park and reducing its carbon footprint. The meadows are full of life, and views of the tall grasses are serene. "They evoke the sense that this place is important: They convey the qualities and patina of an older landscape," Pepper says.

One of the best ways to create your own personal park is to plant a tree, says R.J. Laverne, education specialist with the Davey Tree Company, a partner with the National Parks Foundation, an organization that supports the Park Service. Beautiful trees in your garden and neighborhood have both physical and emotional benefits, he says. They make an urban or suburban landscape more pleasing and natural. Good trees change the whole character of a neighborhood.

You don't have to plant a mighty oak, not to mention a majestic redwood, to get the desired effect. Small ornamental trees -- or even trees in pots -- are said to help reduce stress and increase your ability to concentrate. If you have room for it, plant a tree that will grow into a large specimen, Laverne says, but there is no single perfect choice. "It's like asking a car dealer to recommend the perfect car," he says. "Maybe the Ferrari is the way to go. Maybe the mini-van. Maybe the pickup. It depends."

The best tree is one that will thrive in your climate and conditions and is in scale with your landscape, Laverne says. Make sure your tree has room to grow. Do not plant it too close to the house -- an extremely common error -- or under utility lines. Your tree should not need the help of pesticides and fertilizers. "If you plant the right tree in the right place, you can sit back and watch it thrive," Laverne says.

Of course, every plant benefits from a little attention to watering while it becomes established. A mulch ring around your tree -- not piled up against the trunk -- will protect it from being bumped by the lawn mower or damaged by a string trimmer. Mulch also reduces competition from grass and weeds, and helps maintain even soil moisture and temperature.

Trees, like children, provide benefits even when they are small, which is good, because you may never see your tree at maturity. "A truly generous person is one who plants a tree under which they will never sit and enjoy the shade," Laverne says. But, like our national parks, a tree can be your legacy to the neighborhood, a personal park that grows to encompass something a little bigger and grander than its own spreading branches.

Sources

-- The National Park Service marks its 100th birthday on Aug. 25. To celebrate, visitors to National Parks will receive free admission from Aug. 25 through 28. The NPS website, nps.gov, has links to help you find national parks in your area (there are more than 400 parks), learn about centennial programs and events at the parks, and discover the National Parks Service history.

Free days are a great way to discover one of the 127 national parks that charge an entrance fee (normally from $3 to $30). Admission to other national parks is always free. Entrance fees are also waived on National Public Lands Day, Sept. 24, and on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

-- The Davey Tree Expert Company, davey.com, works with communities, corporations, utilities and individuals on tree and landscape care and maintenance. The company's website includes information and advice on choosing, planting and taking care of trees and has links to certified arborists who can help you with your trees.

(For editorial questions, please contact Clint Hooker at chooker@amuniversal.com.)

Deep in the concrete jungle of New York City, in an exuberant community garden surrounded by tall buildings and enclosed by a chain-link fence, a sign proclaims that this block-long space is a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat. Step inside. The birds are singing.

Certifications such as the National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Habitat program are raising awareness of gardens as natural environments. Birds, butterflies, toads and turtles never pay any attention to signs when they are sizing up a garden, but official signs do the work of informing your neighborhood and community of your commitment to nature and the environment.

"Any kind of sign -- whether it shows your garden is a pesticide-free zone or a backyard wildlife habitat -- it's a signal to your neighbors that you are doing something different, and it defines what you're doing," says Kim Eierman, a horticultural consultant in New York. Eierman's company, EcoBeneficial, works with clients to improve their environmental footprint.

Eierman lives in a suburb of New York City where gardens are very small. "My message to folks is, 'If I can landscape for the environment, anybody can,'" she says. "A small lot can make a big difference."

You don't need credentials or experience to make your statement. The NWF's habitat program helps interested gardeners turn their backyards into spaces that offer wildlife food, shelter, water and places to raise their young. The NWF provides guidelines, tips and, above all, encouragement. If you have a few shrubs and a birdbath, you qualify. If you have more extensive landscaping -- a mixed-shrub border, a couple of trees, pretty flowers and a small brush heap, you're a first-class habitat gardener.

Besides the NWF, the Monarch Waystation program sponsored by Monarch Watch, which supports monarch butterfly research and conservation, encourages gardeners to make their own backyards a haven for monarchs. The Xerces Society's Pollinator Habitat program asks gardeners to "sign the pledge" to provide habitat for pollinators and protect them by avoiding the use of insecticides.

As is apparent from the emphasis of these programs, pollinators are particularly vulnerable. Modern farming practices, loss of habitat, and the widespread use of garden pesticides have all contributed to a decline in populations of bees, butterflies, birds, flies, bats and other pollinators. To increase awareness of the gravity of this situation, a number of conservation and garden groups have joined forces to form the National Pollinator Garden Network and sponsor a Million Pollinator Garden Challenge. Their goal is to register one million public and private gardens, parks and other properties whose owners are committed to growing plants rich in nectar and pollen to revive pollinator populations. The map of registered gardens on the network's website shows the impressive progress of their efforts.

Another group, The Pollinator Partnership, offers visitors to its website a virtual gardening tool: You can plant a window box for pollinators online. You can share your virtual window box on Facebook, to get the word out, and take your plant list to a garden shop so you can create the real thing. The Pollinator Partnership also offers a bee-friendly certification program for farmers.

In her business, Eierman advocates relying on native plants of all kinds, but she does not do so at the expense of good garden design. Garden paths, walls, patios and other hardscape features define a garden's spaces and give it much of its character. Within this context, plants need not all be trimmed and tailored, she says. For inspiration, she recommends the extensive plant lists available on the Xerces Society's website.

The first step toward making your garden a better ecosystem may be the decision to eliminate some of the lawn. "Typically, people cling to a lot more lawn than they could ever possibly use," Eierman says. "They don't think about how harmful it can be, especially if they are not managing it organically." A smaller lawn also saves you time and energy.

Eierman suggests creating what she calls a "pollinator victory garden" full of an assortment of flowers, with blooms from spring through frost, concentrating on pollinator-friendly plants in large groups to help sustain healthy populations of beneficial insects. A diverse planting makes any garden more beautiful. Milkweeds, hyssop, zinnias, cosmos, day lilies and joe-pye weed are among the many great flowers that will bring butterflies and other pollinators to your garden.

It's fine to grow nonnative plants, Eierman says, but native plants support native insects -- many of which depend completely on them. Trees and shrubs give the garden depth and character and also provide habitat.

The birds and the bees can't read signs, but they can read the signals you send them by planting a garden they will regard as an attractive habitat. The signs are really a statement for the benefit of your neighbors. Good things sometimes need to have attention called to them.

Sources

Official signs identifying your garden as a Wildlife Habitat, Honeybee Haven or Monarch Waystation, among other designations, are available from a number of organizations, all working to promote ecologically sound gardening practices and awareness of the importance of insects and other wildlife in our gardens.

The application processes are all online. It takes only a few minutes to click through the steps for qualification, and along the way you're likely to pick up a few great gardening ideas. The sturdy signs are available for a fee, and you'll have to mount them yourself on a fence or a post. Here are a few of the possibilities:

-- The National Wildlife Federation's Garden for Wildlife initiative spreads the word about habitat loss and promotes local, garden-scale efforts to increase habitat for birds, butterflies and other wildlife. On the NWF website, nwf.org, you can learn about native plants and the conditions wildlife needs, certify your garden as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat, and purchase a sign.

-- Monarch Watch, monarchwatch.org, promotes butterfly gardening, especially for monarch butterflies, which are particularly threatened. A good monarch butterfly garden includes milkweed, which is the only food monarch caterpillars eat. Monarch butterflies are attracted to many different flowers, but the females lay their eggs only on milkweed. The website offers tips for butterfly gardeners, lists sources for milkweed plants and seeds, and takes visitors through the steps to make a garden a certified Monarch Waystation.

-- Beyond Pesticides, pesticidefreezone.org, sells ladybug and honeybee signs with the words "Pesticide Free Zone." The sign is also available in Spanish.

-- The Pesticide Action Network, panna.org, offers tips on bee-friendly gardening. Join the group and receive a "Honeybee Haven" sign.

-- The Million Pollinator Garden Challenge website, millionpollinatorgardens.org, is a rich source of information on pollinators and pollinator gardening for home gardeners, communities, schools and businesses. You can register your garden on the site. Signs, flags and banners are available at gardencentermarketing.com.

-- The Xerces Society, xerces.org, is dedicated to the protection of invertebrates, including butterflies, beetles and worms, as well as their habitats. The organization's pollinator conservation resources include books, regional plant lists, conservation guides and links to nurseries and garden shops that sell native plants.

-- Kim Eierman is the owner of EcoBeneficial, a horticultural communications and advisory business. She works with gardeners and businesses in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey to turn their gardens into ecologically smart landscapes that support birds and pollinators. Virtual landscape consulting for other regions is also available. Her website, ecobeneficial.com, includes videos and podcasts on garden ecology and sustainability, plus tips for turning your garden into a Pollinator Victory Garden.

(For editorial questions, please contact Clint Hooker at chooker@amuniversal.com.)