Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Wildlife Gardening

Native plants and wildlife go hand in hand. Your local plants and animals have evolved together and are dependent upon one another for survival. Plants provide animals with food, nesting sites, cover, and protection from the elements. Animals return the favor by helping to pollinate plants and spreading their seeds.

You can make your yard into a wildlife haven by selecting an array of native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants that are known to attract birds, bees, butterflies, mammals, dragonflies, and more.

Many of our natives are outstandingly beautiful and easy to grow and maintain. Making a native plant and wildlife garden requires some careful planning, but the rewards are great. You may look out upon your beautiful plantings one day and see tiny iridescent hummingbirds, gracefully fluttering butterflies, whistling songbirds, and scampering chipmunks, all making use of your backyard wildlife habitat.

Here's some links from eNature.com for specific wildlife gardening topics:
Attracting Birds
Attracting Birds -- more
Attracting Hummingbirds
Butterfly Gardening
Attracting Butterflies
Shrubs and Wildlife
Trees and Wildlife
Aquatic Plants

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have a little 7 acre piece of heaven where we encourage nature to thrive by allowing native plants to grow and thus also allowing woods animals a place to be safe. We've built paths for walking and have a moose who occasionally saunters down the path. The shrubs around the house have a mixture of edibles and native flowering plants. Birds and bees love them and we love the fruit.
The end for this is coming tho' since expenses (taxes, insurance etc) may force us to sell. How do we keep this because I'm sure the next owners will split up the property as we have water frontage also. It is sad to think of the future.

sharingsunshine said...

First of all, thank you for caring for God's creation. We certainly don't have any moose .. but we did have a beautiful fox visit yesterday that stayed at the veggie scraps. Usually they go running through with a sip from the pond. Pictures are never good at all. I got a video of this fox which was really cool. Here's a still photo of the fox also.

I totally understand your anguish. We are needing to move further south and I can't imagine leaving all of this behind. Rather than focus on the negative (which tends to attract negative), I am thanking God for bringing a buyer, when we put it on the market, that will love wildlife and continue to provide not only the habitat but the fruit & veggie scraps and fill bird feeders and clean birdbaths.

I even imagine walking them around the property while they ooooohhh and awwwwwhhhhh about things and ask questions about plants and the wildlife.

Ya know ... it doesn't take real long for you to begin to KNOW that it's going to happen that way. Now keep in mind you can't do this half of the time and worry the other half or the scales are simply balanced to neutral. Our beliefs are rather powerful when it comes right down to it. Maybe this article will help: Changing Our Thought Patterns

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