Gardening for Wildlife: Simplified

Four things to consider makes it simple. What if someone created a book in the popular book trend: Gardening for Wildlife for Dummies. None of us are dummies, of course, but the principles of gardening for wildlife can be outlined so that the concept is less intimidating. Wildlife is waiting for us to give it a little support, to take a bit of the negative pressure off so that it can thrive.

First of all, let’s define wildlife for the purposes of this post. Wildlife includes birds, butterflies, bees, plus other native insects, mammals, and critters that live in the soil and water like worms, beetles, frogs, toads, salamanders, lizards, newts, snakes. Basically all native critters besides us!

Here are the main principles that you would find in my dummies book if such a thing existed (thanks to my husband James for the cover mock-up, using one of my pictures from last year):

1. Plant more native plants.
2. Stop using pesticides.
3. Leave natural materials on your property.
4. Provide sources of water and shelter.

That’s it! Just four things to consider: 3 things to do and 1 thing to stop doing. I'll cover them in a bit more detail.

Plant more native plants than most of your neighbors. Have your landscape be above average when it comes to native plant usage. Shrink your lawn, get rid of your crape myrtles and Asian elms, and plant native flowers that bloom throughout the year. Do your research and be mindful of what you plant: regionally appropriate plants, host plants for local butterflies and moths, good nectar source plants, and plants that make seeds or berries for birds (remember that not all birds eat berries).

There are 2 purposes for providing native plants for wildlife as a food source:

1. Flowers provide food for pollinators in the form of nectar and pollen, later they turn into seeds or berries for birds and small critters. Plant flowers that bloom throughout the year.
2. Plant foliage is food for herbivores such as the larvae of butterflies and moths. Some of these larvae/caterpillars become food for birds.

Seasonal blooms - Spring: Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis); Summer: Phlox paniculata 'Jeana'; Fall: goldenrod (Solidago sp.)

Stop using pesticides. The natural world has a food chain where one critter usually eats another one. The tiniest of aphids are food for ladybug larvae and other insects; small songbirds, tiny hummingbirds, and lizard/anoles eat them to some extent. If you spray them with insecticide then anything that eats them will ingest the poison.  Explore other ways to reduce high populations of unwanted bugs until wildlife can catch up: spray them with a hose or squish them with your fingers. Hold a bucket of soapy water under Japanese beetles and tap them; they usually react by dropping to the ground (or into your bucket!).

Birds eat bugs! Photo copyright Romin Dawson

Leave natural materials on your property as much as possible: the leaves that fell from your trees, dead limbs, tree snags if they are in a safe area. Dead plant material provides several ways to support native insects and birds.

• Dead logs are shelter places for lizards and salamanders, homes for beetles and wood-boring bees.
• Dead leaves shelter over-wintering butterflies and moths, as well as being a source of food for many decomposers like worms. 
• Dead branches support lichens and fungi which in turn are sources of food for others. Pile them up in brush piles in inconspicuous places and let small birds and chipmunks take shelter there.

Adult Question Mark butterflies hibernate
in natural areas

Question Mark that I found in March was
an adult that stayed over the winter

Brown-headed nuthatches nest in dead pines

Provide sources of water and shelter. A source of water might be as simple as a birdbath that you keep clean. It could be a stream or pond on your property. Shelter sources could be bird boxes, evergreen trees and shrubs, tree snags for woodpeckers and other cavity dwelling birds like the brown-headed nuthatch. When the leaves fell off your plants, did you find bird nests hidden in the branches? Birds love a thicket so consider some shrubs that grow densely even if they are not evergreen.

So now you have some basic principles about gardening for wildlife – just four things to consider. Here’s one more thing that gardening for wildlife doesn’t have to be: it doesn’t have to be messy or untidy. Incorporate these principles however you wish, in the front yard as well as the backyard (although you may want to save the brush pile for the back). Even the National Wildlife Federation no longer calls your certified garden a ‘backyard wildlife habitat’ – it is now more broadly called ‘wildlife habitat.’

Disclaimer: This is not a real book; this is a mocked up cover with one of my photos.