I had never given any conscience thought to "vertical" diversity until this lesson!  I was aware of it of course by walking though woods and other natural areas but as to landscaping my yard up and down to promote biodiversity would have been done accidentally.  As with many 30+ year old city neighbourhoods, lot size can impose landscaping limits.  I live in a duplex and my "half" of the lot is ~30' x 100'. Fortunately for me, one of my immediate neighbours has a large lilac bush following our shared fence which is quite full.  My other neighbour has mostly lawn but has landscaped the boarders of her yard with Easter White Cedars, a Flowering Crab Apple and several flowering plants.  My third "neighbour is a K-8 school where the school board has a mix of shrubs and trees along the boarder between the parking area and my yard. As to my vertical landscaping, I have some lawn in both my front and back yards.  The front yard has a couple flowerbeds, a small shrub line and a 20+ year old Norway(?) Maple that is quite full and ~35' tall.  Earlier this spring, I dugout and replaced a small circular flowerbed around the truck of the maple where I transplanted some hostas species and a couple of plants from the mint family.  My back yard has several raised beds where four raised beds where I grown strawberries and various vegetables for our consumption.  In amongst the vegetables are marigolds and borage.  The other beds I have planted flowers to primarily attract wildlife.  As I have already mentioned my small pond in early discussion boards, I will add that I have directed any overflow from the pond into a bog/peat garden where I have iris species growing.  The Pin Cherry is providing about a 25' vertical height and the pergola over my vegetable beds also provides some vertical habitat and I do have some messy areas in my back yard which are not too large (and yet still bother my wife...;)).

I prefer to use leaf litter as mulch in my yard. It’s free! Since I have a natural area on two sides of my yard it’s easy to leave fallen limbs and brush piles there. I am experiencing some bird strikes in the spring so I need to work on that.