Sandra

I have a few different places that I would like to make more bird friendly. Our home in Chicago, Illinois has a small yard and I would love to remove as much grass as possible and put in native plants to attract birds. I have planted a garden but end up battling rabbits. I put up bird feeding station and made the sparrows really happy as well as mice! We have a home in Cedar River, Michigan was previously used to graze livestock and horses. It has about 5 acres cleared the the remaining 35 is wooded. There is a nice pond. The concern here is that I have a lot of non-native buckthorn and phragmites grass that have taken over the pasture area. I need to work to remove that in a non-chemical way if at all possible before I can start over. Deer and bear are problems here for any bird feeding station. In the future I would love to have a very large garden for food production and include berry and fruit trees. Our last location is in Watersmeet, Michigan. We have a home on a private lake and our 20 acres is adjacent to the Ottawa National Forests. It is mostly wooded. I have feeders on our porch near the house but bear have been a problem as well as birds hitting my kitchen window. I would like to plant more native flowers that are hopefully deer resistant. I would also love to learn more about gardening at the water's edge to improve nesting sites for aquatic birds. We have loons and I would love to make things as favorable for them as possible. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me!