Growing Wild: Gardening for Birds and Nature

I actually started with a small garden for monarch butterflies, following the recommendations for my locale, as provided by the North American Butterfly Assn. It was so exciting when monarchs, as well as other butterflies came, that I expanded to create a large native prairie garden in a 300 sq ft gardening bed. It was large enough that I have some regrets I didn't just sow it with native prairie seed mixes. I had a color scheme in mind of purples, pinks, blues, and whites. So, I planted purple coneflowers throughout, with some purple poppy mallow, wild nodding onion, swamp milkweed, common milkweed, blue lobelia, blue indigo, ironweed, New England aster, dogbane, wild bergamot, foxwood beardtongue, pearly everlasting, wild strawberry, joe pye weed, prairie phlox, prairie dropseed grass, bluestem grass, indian grass, and side oats grama grass. Purple coneflowers are wonderful because they bloom a long time and multiply. They transplant well. I'm happy I did this color scheme, which is in full bloom now. There was another area that was more difficult in terms of landscaping, because I had to invent the garden beds. I finally realized it would be best as a courtyard. I created flowering hedges on three sides with borders of flowers in front and a circular garden in the center with a hummingbird feeder. I had a small patio made to look out on the courtyard. There's a secret garden feel to it that I love, which is nice variety to the prairie garden beyond and the open woodland look of the front yard. I still have lawn to get rid of in the front yard and got some good ideas from our class about native ground covers.

I recently put in a pollinator bed with butterfly weed, swamp milkweed, beauty bush, winter berries, and other pollinator friendly native plants. I also had a rain garden and large conservation landscape with native plants and shrubs installed, a permeable patio with native plants surrounding it, and two shade beds in my front yard. I am planning on converting the back yard bit by bit into planting beds, and putting a few more beds in the front yard. It's my 5-year plan! I would also like to find a water element to add to the back gardens. Now, I just need a year or so survival and growth.

I can't place any trees or plants because of the house I live in, we only one the house and a small amount of plants and feeders in our backyard. I like everyones storys, though!

It wasn't challenging to map out my yard and look up my ecoregion and hardiness zone. Because there is so much to do, I find that I have a few projects going on at once. I have so many invasive growing under the wooded area of my yard.  Last year I had an eco-goat service come to knock down the weeds. It was fun watching the goats eat! We were able to maintain control and plant some areas. We have scheduled the goats to come and redo some spots and hit some new areas. There are many non-native ornamentals that we have marked for removal. So far we have removed all of the barberry bushes and replanted with Carolina spicebush and black chokeberry. We removed some Japanese Spirea and put in native wildflowers. I have more spirea that needs to go, plus catmint, skip or cherry laurel, non-native viburnums, etc. We have expand the flower beds and the beds around tree and added native bushes and ground covers. I'd like to replace the lawn with some native options. We have made a start, but there is still a long way to go.

I have ordered some seed for a pollinator garden from Ernst Conservation Seed.  I plan to convert a mown lawn space into a pollinator garden, starting with a space that's about 8' x 4' and expanding over several years.  I would also like to put up a deer fence to protect some of the wild raspberry bushes to save them for the birds.

I have started a partial shade meadow in our backyard.  The big challenge has been garlic mustard weed, which outstrips every other plant.  My husband has been “mowing” with the trimmer, and I hope my seeds will come through.  It is a 4y year endeavour and we are in year 1.  I have planted a number of native understory trees and bushes, like elderberry, mountain laurel, wit hazel, etc.  Wandering around out there, I came upon Jack in the pulpit and I have been nursing them along. on the upside, I have found a downy woodpecker nest.  That was pretty exciting!  There are a number of snags back there, so we’ll see who else shows up.  I really like the song birds at my feeders, and I am not sure they will be happy about owls, but it would be neat to hear them.  I printed some of the birdhouse plans and hope to work on that this winter.

Currently I'm collecting native plants to redo the flower bed in the front yard. Along with this remodel I will be removing lawn. There is also a water feature in that area. In addition I plan on remodeling order bed by removing invasives and replacing negatives.

I am excited to start a small native plant patch with a birdbath to help attract additional species. The biggest problem we have is our "soil," which is really just clay and rocks.