You can make your yard or garden a humane and vital place for wildlife. Habitat destruction is the primary threat to wildlife. The process of building roads and developing suburban neighborhoods is a leading cause of habitat decline.
By becoming a humane gardener and creating native habitat you create an oasis for wildlife, plants, and yourself. When you and your neighbors have friendly green space it creates corridors for wildlife to move around to find food, raise young, and live a natural life.
Your yard and plant choices will reflect the ecosystem you live in and may provide habitat for insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals as well as a variety of plants.
This article will introduce you to the key things needed in a wildlife garden and why you want to provide habitat.
Benefits of a Wildlife-Friendly Landscape
Connection with nature involves the senses. Experience the wonderful sounds, smells, sights, and touches of nature.
Building a beautiful outdoor space you can enjoy relaxing in.
Wildlife gardens can be a mix of plant species including fruit trees, vegetable plants, and stunning flowers.
Numerous studies have shown that native plant gardens in urban areas increase biodiversity and help indicator species such as monarch butterflies and frogs.
Developing a wildlife habitat means using more low-maintenance perennials. That means less mowing!
Rolling out the welcome mat for beneficial insects and birds means that you control unwelcome pests in a natural organic way.
It can help wildlife in your area survive and thrive in changing times, like when the climate becomes warmer and more extreme due to global warming.
Image from the National Wildlife Federation
Drawbacks of a Wildlife Garden
Your neighbors are disgusted and give you the evil eye.
Worse yet they report you for violating your HOA (also Im very sad if you have one of these because they are often anti-garden/nature).
Expenses - yes, gardening can be addictive and there are many cool things to buy!
Also, some plants may be nibbled on.
Who Is A Humane Gardener?
A humane gardener is someone who has a holistic view of gardening. They seek to create spaces for plants and animals. The humane gardener recognizes the need for this interconnected web of native plants, animals, and humans.
So the humane garden has plenty of resources for the wild animals, the pollinators, and some for the humans. A humane garden is not just about food. It’s about habitat.
A humane garden is a habitat that provides food, water, shelter, and space for wildlife in your yard. It can be very simple - with just a few plants - or it can be larger and more complex.
Even if you do not have much outdoor space in your home, there are ways to make your yard or balcony more hospitable for wildlife.
What is a habitat? What does it have to do with my backyard?
"Habitat" means all the places that an animal needs in order to survive and reproduce. This habitat is where they find food, water, shelter from weather or predators, and space to live under different conditions. Habitat can be created anywhere there are plants - even on your roof!
Since your yard is part of the larger environment, it can provide habitat for wildlife in your area.
Flower garden or pollinator garden?
How Does Gardening Help Animals?
Gardening can help many animals by providing more food for them. When we build homes and roads natural food sources are destroyed. Often they are replaced with landscaping plants that are actually an invasive species.
Invasive species have evolved in other parts of the world. They often don’t provide food that is edible for our native wildlife.
Intentional gardening also provides water and places to hide or take shelter.
For example, birds eat lots of insects (like aphids and caterpillars) and seeds (like grass seeds). They also like to drink water from birdbaths and bathe in them.
It is very good for birds when we plant native trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers, and herbaceous plants that are exactly what they need - especially in times of climate change.
Is It A Weed or a Native Plant?
As they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Many species of native plants are considered weeds. We work hard to eradicate them.
Leaving a section of yard as a No Mow area can attract many birds and small mammals.
However, these plants provide valuable food for wildlife.
American burnweed
Bristle grass
Chickweed
Knotweed
Pigweed and other Amaranths
Pokeweed is a food source for deer and birds
Ragweed
Sow thistle
Sumac (tree)
Plants are great for wildlife and human consumption
The idiom “sharing is caring” applies here. Many plants can feed you and your wild friends.
We have “how to grow” articles of many of these plants.
Apple/crabapple - leave some fruit on the tree while harvesting. There are many bird species that love apples too. Fallen apples are favored by deer and raccoons.
Cherry
Corn
Grapes
Mulberry
Oats
What About Nonnative Animals?
When we talk about animals that live outdoors, we usually mean the animals in your area - including ones not from North America.
"Native" means an animal or plant that has always lived in a place, such as where it evolved and how long its ancestors were already living there (millions of years).
This is different from nonnative, which means one that has been brought into an area that it did not evolve in. Many plants are nonnative - including many invasive ones.
However, animals can be non-native too. Cats are an example of a non-native and non-wildlife species. Outdoor cats often prey on songbirds, rabbits, frogs, and squirrels. Because they are hunters they are not going to differentiate between a “pesky” mouse and an at-risk wildlife species.
Other invasive animals include the Burmese python which is especially destructive in the Florida Everglades. Like cats, they were abandoned or allowed to become feral and established a breeding population that competes with native species for food.
You can learn more about what species are considered invasive in your local by going to your state Department of Natural Resources.
National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat Certification Program
This is a great program and one I have done at several locations. It’s flexible so it can be done in a city lot, suburban yard, or rural farm.
They have 5 goals you need to meet which are the basics for any wildlife-friendly garden.
Food
Plants and animals have evolved together. That’s why it’s so important to provide native plants. They provide food in the form of seeds, leaves, and bark that the animals in your ecosystem need to survive.
Water
None of us can survive without water. Have a source of water that is elevated for birds, a small shallow dish for butterflies and toads, and a larger dog dish size for mammals.
Don’t leave out buckets of water as smaller animals can drown in them but a shallow rubber feed bucket is easy to clean and can provide water to larger mammals.
Shelter
Animals need shelter to escape the weather, hide from a predator, or simply relax. (Who doesn’t love a cozy spot to nap?)
Shelter may be in the form of a bush, brush pile, stone pile, or some nice mulch.
A Place to Raise Young
We want our animal friends to live a natural life and that means reproduction. Provide places where they can nest and have babies.
Birdhouse and bushes, an area of tall grass for rabbits and field birds, and milkweed for butterflies are just a few examples.
Healthy Sustainable Environment
Creating a natural organic space is of the utmost importance. We are all about that at Fox Run and can help you move from chemical to organic methods that are healthier for the animals and your family!
Is caring about animals just for scientists? Does this have anything to do with gardening?
No! Caring about animals is something everyone can do. It can be very simple and fun - like growing plants that provide food for birds.
Everyone can encourage native wildlife in their yard, even if they do not know any scientific names or where the animals come from. It is especially important to care about wildlife when it is very hot, cold, dry, wet (flooded), sunny (parched), windy, etc.
This is when they need seeds, water, or shelter from the weather most. It is a good idea to listen carefully to how wildlife in your area sounds and looks because you can know what conditions they need to survive better.
Nancy Lawson, the author of The Humane Gardener, is an advocate for humane gardens. When she worked for the Humane Society she states they often taught “protecting wildlife from afar”. Nancy wondered about all the wild animals who had adapted to urban living and those that lived right in her neighborhood.
Can I Grow Vegetables In A Humane Garden?
Yes, you can still grow vegetables in a humane garden, you just may have to learn to share a bit! You can also fence off a section of your garden for humans.
I garden in a community garden that is located within a nature conservancy. The garden area has a tall fence around the perimeter to keep out deer and rabbits - who have the rest of the 800 acres!
One of the best things to do is grow extra so both you and wildlife have a share. If you have enough land you can plant a garden away from the house just for wildlife.
Many of our wildlife articles have a section on dealing with excluding that species from an area. If you are having deer pressure on your vegetable garden read Everything You Want To Know About White-Tailed Deer.
Author, Ame Vanorio, has been gardening organically for 29 years and has been in love with wildlife for 57 (that’s how old she is). She loves helping people learn ways that gardening and wildlife habitats can coexist.
Raccoons are adorable, smart, precocious and they use these attributes to get into trouble. Not that raccoons think “I am going to get in this trash can just to be bad.” But that is what happens.
This article will tell you everything you need to know about raccoons including how smart they are and how to humanely keep them out of your attic and chicken house.