Elliot

Thanks for the photo. I do love your front yard views. I thought I had a short growing season in my 4A planting zone so was suprised by your even shorter growing season. I live fairly close to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada but am classified as Great Plains, Temporate Prairies and Northern Glaciated Plains. We call it foothills and it comes with different challenges. It's unfortunate you have to travel so far to a nursery to find native plants. Can you grow flowering cactii?  It's impressive that you have grown a vegetable garden for so long with challenging water conditions (and smoke too). What vegetables do you plant? I haven't formally recorded the birds that frequent my year but want to increase the type of bird, like you, by growing more native plants. Good luck in your endeavour.

That was a good point to read about 2/3 native plants to 1/3 not native as we do have our favourites. I do need to increase my native offerings. I was a bit worried about leaving dead flower heads on some plants as it will decrease the flowering particularly with petunias. I suppose it's okay to leave the heads on plants that offer more seeds like cone flowers. What do you think?

My goal is to include more native plants this gardening season. All the grass has been removed so we can add to the biodiversity already present - shrubs and large evergreens, various plants and mulch covering a good portion of the ground. I will look for native plants that maintain seeds late into winter. I don't know if I have room for a flowering tree in my yard, but perhaps a willow? Embracing messiness has been a new insight as I try to deadhead to keep plants flowering (and it works). I did not remove annual plants from the flower beds or cut down perennials this year to leave a wintering for insects (something I learned last year). There is some pieces of cut, dead branches in bins to use as firewood, but perhaps I could create a brush pile with some of them? I have learned again this chapter about the importance of water for birds year round so must invest in a heating element. I like the idea of a horseshoe of plants around the feeder for safety, but the two spruce trees already provide protection close by. I have removed plants inside the house by the front bay window so as to reduce the chance of bird strikes. Our feeder is a little more than 3 feet away from the window so maybe we can move it a little closer. It's good to have a specific recommendation for the cleaning of bird feeders and also an idea to reduce the house sparrows that tend to dominate the feeder by trying a halo of some type.