Building Native Wildlife Habitats

backyard habitat 140.gif Building an ecosystem in your backyard means giving wildlife the required natural resources needed to support their existence. Doing so will enhance your life in many ways while giving back to the environment. Your family will enjoy the sight of nature viewed from your home window. Songbirds, deer, and butterflies, will be attracted to your yard. In turn, planting native plants will reduce the need for pesticides, fertilizers and routine yard maintenance, provide foliage, berries, nuts, seeds, and nectar to help woodland animals survive, and offer a fresh water source and cover for nesting places to ensure a healthy home for your wild neighbors.

What to Buy / Plant

Native plants require many different habitats to survive. Assess your yard to determine the environment and types of plants to purchase. Bog plants need moist, sunny areas and are found in low wet soils. They will attract dragonflies, frogs, birds and butterflies. While plants such as beautyberry, hearts-a-burstin' and foamflower require dry shady areas.

Propagate

Naturalizing plants propagate themselves through underground rhizomes, windblown seeds and seeds carried by birds and animals. If your habitat is contained to a specific area of your landscape, be sure to watch out for these baby plants popping up like weeds in more structured landscapes.

Watering

Identify your landscape characteristics, then group plants with similar moisture requirements. Match them to suitable yard conditions such as sunny, shady, damp, and dry. Create areas for plants with different drought tolerances; this will allow you to water only the plants that need it.

Edibles

Fruit trees such as apples, peaches, pears and plums are available in abundance at nurseries for February planting. This month is also good for growing leafy stir-fry greens like broccoli rabe, bok choy and kale. Lettuce is fun seeded in shapes; spell a child’s name, plant a peace sign or heart for Valentines Day.

Pests

toad 75.gif Bats and toads may seem a little scary to some, but encouraging them can reduce mosquitoes, ants, and other bugs. A bat can eat thousands of mosquitoes a night and a single toad can eat about 3,000 bugs each month! Encourage them by providing bat and toad houses that are easy to make.

For Fun

pineconefeeder 50.gif Birds are also great at eating bugs; building nesting boxes or bird feeders is a fun way for children to be involved. This can be as simple as hanging a pinecone coated with peanut butter and birdseed from a tree branch.