Habitat Gardens: Happy Meals and a Home for Garden Critters
September 30th, 2008
Filed in Garden Design
Tags: animals, bugs, butterflies, butterly garden, flowers, habitats, hostas
“Invite animals into my garden? I don’t THINK so!” I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that from many serious gardeners if asked whether they welcome or shoo away insects, small mammals, birds and other animals to their gardens. Yes, deer herds indiscriminately ripping baby lettuces out of the vegetable garden, and cheerfully eating hostas and stripping arborvitae of their leaves is maddening. Watching a chipmunk scale a lily (Ha ha! Bad plant pun!) and eat the flower makes procuring a marshmallow gun imperative to gardening.
There is a way to invite animals in without losing your mind. Plant a habitat garden! As you research and plan your habitat garden, not only will you learn about plants that are less likely to be munched, and you will learn which plants are tasty to beneficial insects and critters so that you can plant more of those. It is easier to maintain gardening sanity if you understand that a plant will be eaten- for a good cause.
This post will introduce you to the concept of habitat gardens. Our next post will give more detailed information about plant selection and providing water and cover sources for specific animals.
Three Components of Habitat Gardens
Wildlife have the same three basic needs as people: Food, Water and Shelter. In order to attract the animals and insects you want and keep out those you don’t, you need to know which food (plants) are the yummiest to the wildlife you want to invite in and plant those. So that you don’t encourage hassles with pests, stay away from plants that insects like to eat, or surround them with repellent types of plants like salvias, marigolds, allium and other smelly plants.
Some animals drink through their feet. Other animals bathe as frequently as well-scrubbed humans. Clean water sources are essential to your wildlife garden. Birds need clean bird baths to keep their feathers in top shape for flying. Butterflies need areas to “puddle” or take up minerals in the water through their feet. Small ponds or wetland areas provide moist hideouts for toads and amphibians.
That pretty butterfly bush, holly tree, or the dead pine tree in your yard is the equivalent of a five star hotel for wildlife. To enhance the relative plushness of the accommodations you provide for garden creatures, make sure you plant shelter plants in proximity to food plants. Butterflies, for example, need larval food, adult food, and places to attach a chrysalis and lay eggs. That means you need at least four different types of plants in your garden to host butterflies throughout their entire life cycle. For a black swallowtail, a garden including fennel for the larva (caterpillars), lantana or annual vinca for nectar, ornamental grasses for building chrysalis, and native shrubs for adults to lay eggs. Depending upon your interest in attracting specific animals to your yard, you will need several different combinations of plants to provide year-round comfort for non-migratory species.
Benefits of Planting Habitat Gardens
Native species of plants and animals are increasingly finding themselves homeless and hungry. As gardeners, we can help! Planting natives and providing food and shelter for beneficial insects helps conserve natural resources through this sustainable gardening method. Native plants need fewer inputs in the way of water and food than exotics that are not well adapted to the area. Native plants will foster native insects, which serve as an important part of the food chain within individual ecosystems. Focusing on healthy, pesticide-free garden is healthier for the environment as a whole, and for neighborhoods and families near the garden. Replacing acres of turfgrass with shrubs, bunch grasses, flowers and trees that would naturally occur in an area leads to a yard by yard restoration of the natural ecosystem that is lost every day to development. This type of gardening also requires less work, less gasoline and less labor expended to maintain the garden, and less water. Habitat gardens are a win-win situation for gardeners, plants and wildlife.
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