Betsy

Due in part to physical limitations in the past few years, my yard, where we have lived for almost 40 years,  has on it's own become a jungle.  The yard is small but it has a lot going on!!  It gives me joy every day.  Wonderful birds and insects abound, and I never get tired of observing the wildlife, big and small that live in it or wander through. Unfortunately, it is really out of my control at this point....fortunately, before I became so physically limited I planted many cultivated native flowers, wildflowers,  and bushes, and made two brush piles that are added to regularly.  Birds and other wild things love my yard!  I garden for birds, but also for moths and other insects.  Anything that a caterpillar might eat gets to stay.  I have a perennial garden in the front, which is really a survival of the fittest kind of situation.  I have put in natives, including echinacea, the small wild lupine, and milkweed (native?).   Wild asters, and goldenrod add to the pollen buffet in the fall.    Pussywillow is popular with caterpillars, birds, bees....  Trees on the property, oak, and spruce, sumac, wild cherry and walnut feed many kinds of caterpillars, mammals and birds.  Grapes run rampant.  Black Locust, while not a native,  keeps the Silver-spotted Skipper butterflies in food.  In our very suburban yard, we have the pleasure of having a lot of mammal visitors and residents....gray and red squirrels, black bear, bobcat (a new arrival in the neighborhood!), chipmunk, possum, raccoon, skunk, red and gray fox, rarely a coyote, meadow voles, mice, and once, a weasel. On the down side, I have battled for 40 years with invasive plants.  I have knotweed, bittersweet and multiflora rose, as well as a flower that I don't remember the name of that I planted years ago before I was aware that it is invasive....I'm afraid that they are here to stay.