This lecture and field tour is an opportunity for sharing the experiences of one who has spent twenty years creating and sustaining a variety of microhabitats in a suburban backyard. His ¾ acre “sanctuary” that began as an empty building lot now has a meadow, shrubland thicket, woodland, and a small pond and marsh. There is practical advice for creating and sustaining wild places, dirty fingernail stuff such as managing invasive plants and pond muck, mowing suggestions for cool and warm season grasses, and finding and introducing native plants that survive wild competition —Natural Landscaping 101. This workshop shows the exciting potential for natural beauty and biodiversity in a limited suburban land area with successional habitats and common southern New England native plants.