This is truly amazing. Hummingbirds are such tiny, wonderful creatures.
Remember, protein makes up 60% of a hummingbird’s diet. The source? Soft bodied insects. Think before you use pesticides. Then put your spray away.
Helen Yoest
Gardening With Confidence
The September/October, 2009 issue of Triangle Gardener is out. This issue features my story entitled Creating a Wildlife Habitat at Home. Triangle Gardener
David and Lara Rose putting up a screech owl box
Creating a Wildlife Habitat at Home
As the days grow shorter, we settle into a routine and feel the comfort of home. Much of the wildlife does the same; but for some wildlife, home is down south. Fall is a great time to create a wildlife habitat as these winged wonders look for food on their migration home.
Creating a wildlife habitat in your own backyard is simple to do and richly rewarding. Your wildlife garden can be a container garden, window box, a corner carved out in a traditional landscape, or an entire suburban lot.
Engaging children in this activity helps create the next generation of gardeners and naturalists.
Providing food, water, cover and places to raise their young is all that is needed to create a wildlife habitat. Walk through your property will reveal what you have already. You may be surprised how little more you need.
FOOD
To attract wildlife, provide the kinds of food wildlife need either naturally or with supplements. The more variety of food sources provided the greater variety of wildlife you’ll attract. Various seeds, nuts, berries, fruits, nectar, sap, and pollen are all good food sources. The use of regionally native plants is also recommended, providing 10 to 50 times more food to the wildlife’s likings.
Food can also be supplemented with feeders to hold seed, suet, and nectar.
WATER
A clean, reliable water source is a key part to creating a wildlife habitat. Water is needed for drinking and bathing. Locating the water source within an easy view also makes it entertaining for the homeowner. Providing water can be as simple as adding a birdbath. Give multiple locations at varying heights to attract a variety of wildlife. It is important to provide water year round, even in the winter and, of course, during times of drought.
COVER
Wildlife needs cover for protection against the elements and predators. \’a0Having a place to escape the threat of pending danger attracts more to the garden. A variety of plant life ranging in size, height and density with trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and ornamental grasses, will increase your chances of attracting more kinds of wildlife.
PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG
The cover provided also gives your wildlife a safe place for reproduction and nurturing wildlife young. In a backyard, dense shrubbery or birdhouses provide safe areas for birds to nest. Different animals have different needs, including certain wildlife requiring water to raise their young such as salamanders, frogs, toads, and dragonflies.
Sustainable gardening practices will also benefit your wildlife habitat such as controlling non-native and invasive species, eliminating or reducing the use of pesticides, use of mulch and reducing lawn size.
Take comfort in an awarding fall; invite the wildlife.
Sidebar
In 1973 the National Wildlife Federation, the nation’s leading conservation organization protecting wildlife and their habitats, began the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program. This program provides a mechanism to certify backyard or community wildlife habitats.
For more information on the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program or to begin the easy to follow certification process, please contact www.nwf.org or 1-800-822-9919.
The Backyard Wildlife Habitat program is a wonderful resource, whether you choose to certify your backyard or to use this information as a tool to make your garden more wildlife friendly.
National Wildlife Federations Top 10 recommended native plants for the southeast:
Black Tupelo (black gum), Nyssa sylvatica
Willow Oak, Quercus phellos
Sweetbay Magnolia, Magnolia virginiana
American Elderberry, Sambucus nigra ssp. Canadensis
Yaupon Holly, Ilex vomitoria
Sweet Pepperbush, Clethra alnifolia
Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata
Trumpet Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens
Climbing Aster, Ampelaster carolinianus
Narrowleaf Sunflower, Helianthus angustifolius
Helen Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.
Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™
Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.
In the words of Edwin Way Teale: “You can prove almost anything with the evidence of a small enough segment of time. How often, in any search for truth, the answer of a minute is positive, the answer of the hour qualified, the answers of the year contradictory!”
Helen Yoest
Gardening With Confidence
Six garden practices to be wildlife friendly:
FOOD
To attract wildlife, provide the kinds of food wildlife need either naturally or with supplements.The more variety of food sources provided the greater variety of wildlife you’ll attract. Various seeds, nuts, berries, fruits, nectar, sap, and pollen are all good food sources. The use of regionally native plants is also recommended, providing 10 to 50 times more food to the wildlife’s likings. Food can also be supplemented with feeders to hold seed, suet, and nectar.
WATER
A clean, reliable water source is a key part to creating a wildlife habitat. Water is needed for drinking and bathing. Locating the water source within an easy view also makes it entertaining for the homeowner. Providing water can be as simple as adding a birdbath. Give multiple locations at varying heights to attract a variety of wildlife. It is important to provide water year round, even in the winter and, of course, during times of drought.
COVER
Wildlife needs cover for protection against the elements and predators. Having a place to escape the threat of pending danger attracts more to the garden. A variety of plant life ranging in size, height and density with trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and ornamental grasses, will increase your chances of attracting more kinds of wildlife.
PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG\
The cover provided also gives your wildlife a safe place for reproduction and nurturing wildlife young. In a backyard, dense shrubbery or birdhouses provide safe areas for birds to nest. Different animals have different needs, including certain wildlife requiring water to raise their young such as salamanders, frogs, toads, and dragonflies.
SUSTAINABLE GARDENING PRACTICES
Sustainable gardening practices will also benefit your wildlife habitat such as controlling non-native and invasive species, eliminating or reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers, use of mulch and reducing lawn size.
ADD COLOR TO ATTRACT WILDLIFE
Red for hummingbirds, yellow for bees, and purple for butterflies. Color is a surefire way to attract wildlife. It doesn’t all have to come from flowers either. Garden accents add never wavering color. Once in the garden, most colored flowers are game, but to draw them in, give them their favorite color!
Helen Yoest
Oh sure, it’s easy to spot a nature lover from their garden, but would be able to tell from their fridge or pantry?
Here’s what you will see:
Here’s another three:
Have you hugged your wildlife today?
Helen Yoest
Gardening With Confidence
Bronze Fennel
Name: Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’
Zones: 4 to 9
Size: 4 feet tall and 18 inches wide
Conditions:F ull sun to partial shade; moist, well-drained soil.
Bronze fennel is grown in my herb garden for one reason: as a host plant for the Eastern black swallowtail butterfly. The plant itself is very lusty looking. Bronze color adds interest in an herb garden that can be heavy on green. The feathery foliage looks good all summer, as long as it is not allowed to go to seed. To avoid this, feel free to cut it back during the summer, or just let the larvae do it for you. Invasive in some areas.
Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™
Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Fan Page.
Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum
If you are going out to pick parsley and find this instead – don’t panic. Plant more. My garden is looking bare of parsley this time of year, but the butterflies are plentiful. We’re happy. So are the Tiger Swallowtail larvae. Just in case you’re wondering, there are plenty of other parsley plants around for these larvae to finish growing on.
Helen Yoest
Gardening With Confidence
Creating a Wildlife Habitat at Home
It’s summer-time, a great time to sit a spell and watch the world go by. As you relax on your deck or porch this summer, sip some tea with the wildlife. Together you can listen to the birds sing or watch their comings and goings from the feeders. After a pause, watch the butterflies flutter by or feel free to nod off to the melodic sound of a serenading frog.
Creating a wildlife habitat in your own backyard is simple to do and richly rewarding. Your wildlife garden can be a container garden, window box, a corner carved out in a traditional landscape, or an entire suburban lot.
Engaging children in this activity helps create the next generation of gardeners and naturalists.
Providing food, water, cover and places to raise their young is all that is needed to create a wildlife habitat. Walk through your property will reveal what you have already. You may be surprised how little more you need.
FOOD
To attract wildlife, provide the kinds of food wildlife need either naturally or with supplements. The more variety of food sources provided the greater variety of wildlife you’ll attract. Various seeds, nuts, berries, fruits, nectar, sap, and pollen are all good food sources. The use of regionally native plants is also recommended, providing 10 to 50 times more food to the wildlife’s likings.
Food can also be supplemented with feeders to hold seed, suet, and nectar.
WATER
A clean, reliable water source is a key part to creating a wildlife habitat. Water is needed for drinking and bathing. Locating the water source within an easy view also makes it entertaining for the homeowner. Providing water can be as simple as adding a birdbath. Give multiple locations at varying heights to attract a variety of wildlife. It is important to provide water year round, even in the winter and, of course, during times of drought.
COVER
Wildlife needs cover for protection against the elements and predators. Having a place to escape the threat of pending danger attracts more to the garden. A variety of plant life ranging in size, height and density with trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and ornamental grasses, will increase your chances of attracting more kinds of wildlife.
PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG
The cover provided also gives your wildlife a safe place for reproduction and nurturing wildlife young. In a backyard, dense shrubbery or birdhouses provide safe areas for birds to nest. Different animals have different needs, including certain wildlife requiring water to raise their young such as salamanders, frogs, toads, and dragonflies.
Sustainable gardening practices will also benefit your wildlife habitat such as controlling non-native and invasive species, eliminating or reducing the use of pesticides, use of mulch and reducing lawn size.
Share your summer; invite the wildlife.
Additional information
In 1973 the National Wildlife Federation, the nation\’92s leading conservation organization protecting wildlife and their habitats, began the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program. This program provides a mechanism to certify backyard or community wildlife habitats.
For more information on the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program or to begin the easy to follow certification process, please contact NWF or 1-800-822-9919.
The Backyard Wildlife Habitat program is a wonderful resource, whether you choose to certify your backyard or to use this information as a tool to make your garden more wildlife friendly.
National Wildlife Federations Top 10 recommended native plants for the southeast:
Black Tupelo (black gum), Nyssa sylvatica
Willow Oak, Quercus phellos
Sweetbay Magnolia, Magnolia virginiana
American Elderberry, Sambucus nigra ssp. Canadensis
Yaupon Holly, Ilex vomitoria
Sweet Pepperbush, Clethra alnifolia
Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata
Trumpet Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens
Climbing Aster, Ampelaster carolinianus
Narrowleaf Sunflower, Helianthus angustifolius
Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™
Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Fan Page.
Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum
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Aster spying butterfly
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Aster watching butterfly emerge
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Butterfly
Butterfly sunning
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Butterfly in the garden
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Butterfly Effect on a little boy!
Story and photos Helen Yoest
Gardening WithConfidence
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™ 2007 © 2011 Helen Yoest @ Gardening With Confidence
Joe Lamp’l said
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May 5, 2009 @ 8:43 am \’b7 EditPriceless! I love this and what a great investment this $5 had. Excellent job and so glad you shared this with us!\
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Colleen Vanderlinden said
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May 5, 2009 @ 8:47 am \’b7 EditWhat a wonderful experience for Aster! Thank you for taking us along on his butterfly adventure.\
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Kerry said
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May 5, 2009 @ 8:59 am \’b7 EditHow totally cool! And what a great way to teach kids the importance of butterflies.\
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wendy said
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May 5, 2009 @ 9:11 am \’b7 EditAwesome project. Swallowtails are beautiful creatures. We had a bunch at this time last year. I\’92ve only seen a few this year. Hoping they\’92ll come back.\
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Dave said
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May 5, 2009 @ 9:21 am \’b7 EditNeat! That would be really fun for kids to see.\
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Jane McKeon said
May 5, 2009 @ 9:38 am \’b7 EditYou\’92re my kind of girl, Helen! I\’92ve done this very same thing with my kids, but with an \’93official\’94 screened butterfly habitat product. Great idea using the Target waste basket! Why didn\’92t I think of that?!!