Happy Garden for Wildlife Month! May is the perfect time to make your garden more friendly for the local wildlife. Whether you are growing herbs on your fire escape or have acres of land to cultivate, you can design your garden to help welcome and support local wildlife.
Here are some tips and tricks on how to make your garden support your environment’s natural ecosystems.
Start With a Wildlife-Friendly Design
If you’re looking to make your garden more friendly to local wildlife, start with two essential garden design elements. First, you’ll need to prioritize having sources of water, like a pond. Second, plant native plants around its edge that can provide food and shelter for nesting.
Optimize Your Garden’s Natural Characteristics
To attract and support local wildlife in your garden, you’ll also want to optimize the natural attributes of your space. If you have a wet area, plant native aquatic-loving plants like orchids, native iris, or blueberries. These plants can encourage salamanders, toads, and dragonflies to visit and set up their homes. Butterflies and other wetland insects will flock and thrive in this natural paradise.
Add a Variety of Native Plants
To make your garden more wildlife-friendly, plant a variety of native plants that provide a habitat corridor for local wildlife to enjoy throughout your neighborhood. These natural plants will naturally attract a variety of fauna to your home garden.
Eliminate Chemicals
Eliminating pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and herbicides is an obvious step to make your garden space attractive to local wildlife. Gardeners who become reliant on these substances strip the soil of nutrients and put undue demands on water resources trying to keep their spaces looking healthy. These types of unnatural gardens are unsustainable to wildlife who can’t thrive in these environments.
Instead, use natural solutions like garden mulch to discourage weeds, add compost to your soil, and introduce native predatory insects to take care of pests like aphids or mites. According to Mary Reynolds, a little bit of magic can happen after nature is invited back into spaces, healing the land and bringing it back into balance.
Let us know how you are celebrating this garden for wildlife month!