Weedy edges for wildlife
On our farm, it doesn't take
any work at all to attract wildlife, but city gardens are very
different. Without acres of woodland and hayfields to make them
feel at home, you need to leave some weedy patches to give wild animals
hiding places and food.
Mom is a master of the
art of blending in well enough with the neighborhood aesthetic while
still attracting birds, butterflies, and more to her small urban
lot. She likes to let wild goldenrod and asters bloom here and
there to feed all kinds of beneficial pollinators and will often allow
flowers to go to seed rather than deadheading. I think the
goldfinch who showed up on these evening primrose pods is even prettier
than the flowers that once graced the plants.
Other ideas for
attracting wildlife to an urban yard include:
Water
--- a bird bath or small pond will be a gathering spot for everything
from insects to birds. Just make sure you keep mosquitoes at bay
by either adding fish to the water or allowing it to dry up regularly.- Cover --- Bushes or
clumps of tall grasses (like pampas grass) make animals feel
safer. To attract a wider range of animals, add brush and rock
piles (but only if you're willing to work around snakes.)
Of course, there's
always some wildlife you might prefer not to attract --- like this
squirrel that eats up all the bird feed --- but, overall, your garden
will be more resilient if it's more diverse. So leave some weedy
edges and give the earth room to breath!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Weedy edges to attract wildlife, that's what I'm going to start calling those areas that I don't feel like cutting. hehe
Another thing to help attract birds is to provide nesting areas. But it needs to be targeted. Last year I put up Eastern bluebird boxes. They were immediately filled with sparrows. This year, I did a little research and found that the likely problem was the boxes weren't out in the open. The bluebirds prefer to have a box in the middle of a field. I cut the bushes and vines that were climbing up the fence post. This removed the cover that the sparrows liked but gave the bluebirds their preferred nesting spot. This year, 2 of those boxes had bluebirds.
Also, know what you want to attract. For me, those bluebirds were attracted because they are voracious predators of insects. They helped me keep the insect population down. A shame they don't seem to like Mexican bean beetles.