If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Creating wildlife friendly fall and winter gardens provides a place for your local wildlife to survive the cold of winter. These gardens also offer a haven for those species that pass through your area while migrating during fall. If you enjoy watching nature's creatures visit your garden during spring and summer, you'll love watching winter visitors as well.

Few species of wildlife actually live deep in forested areas. The great majority of wild creatures in urban areas prefer the areas where the more densely wooded countryside meets our lawns and gardens. By providing fall and winter gardens where these creatures, both animals and birds, can feed and protect themselves from predators, you'll invite some colorful and interesting fall and winter visitors.

Layer The Habitat Of Your Garden

One way to provide habitat for the widest number of species is to plant your fall and winter garden so that it provides a layered habitat. Planting dense groundcover, low shrubs, and taller evergreen or deciduous trees, you can offer food and shelter to a vast number of species. It also helps to provide plantings in different densities. Some plants can be clumped together; others can be more spaced out, and you can also leave some open areas.

Another key to inviting fall and winter wildlife to visit your garden is to provide a source of water during freezing conditions. It is very difficult for many of nature's citizens to locate drinking water during hard freezes, especially if you live in the northern climates where small ponds and streams freeze solid. A birdbath placed in a sunny area which has the ice cover removed daily and more water added can be a blessing for avian species. Lower water features such as small ponds can be maintained with free-flowing water or you can simply provide water in attractive pots or dishes daily for the outdoor creatures to visit. They will come to count on your garden as a watering hole, so be consistent with providing the crucial drinking water they so badly need.

To the extent that it is practical, you'll enjoy the best fall and winter garden results by using plants native to your area. These should be, if not all of your garden, at least a large portion of your plant selections because they are certain to thrive. You can, of course, select some favorites that have value as wildlife habitat even though they may not be native.

Planting Hardy Plants Works Well

Avoid planting delicate plants which will require protection during the coldest nights. You'll also want to select plants which provide nuts, berries, seeds, or food sources for the wildlife visitors. Barley is a great example of a way to provide for visiting birds. Winterberry holds berries far into the deepest part of winter and provides a good food source.

Bird feeders can be an appealing and very helpful addition to your garden. Birds of many species will gather in your garden, both those species that overwinter locally and migrating visitors. Suet blocks are welcomed as well. Bird houses can offer a great spot for birds to get away from cold winds and rain. Be sure to position the bird houses so that the opening faces away from the cold north winds. Position both the bird feeders and bird houses so that they can easily be seen from a windows so you can watch the activity from inside your warm, cozy home.

Some fall and winter garden plant choices for groundcover which do well even in the extreme northern reaches of the contiguous United States include bunchberry, cotoneaster, heather, ferns, and wintergreen. Good winter shrubs and vines to create your mid-height garden habitat include blueberries, chokeberry, red flowering currant, red, mountain, or evergreen huckleberry, rhododendron, snowberry, viburnums, winterberry, holly, and small evergreens. Trees which can provide canopy for wildlife include cedar, pine, fir, crabapple, cottonwood, maple, oak, spruce, willow, and ash. You'll find many others that fit your needs easily as well.

Backyard streams and fountains can add an element of interest to your landscape unlike any other features. The sound of running water adds a sense of peace and serenity while the flowing water encourages wildlife to flock to your landscape.

A backyard pond may be just the place to add a fountain. The recirculation of the water adds oxygen to the pond and encourages a natural balance of bacteria and flora, preventing your pond from becoming a haven for mosquitoes and other undesirable insects. The build up of algae that occurs in a still pond does not become a problem with the constant movement of the water.

Building Your Backyard Stream

Building a stream in your backyard can make the pond and fountain appear much more natural. If you are lucky enough to have an existing brook which passes through your property, you may simply choose to divert the flow of that stream and incorporate it into your overall landscape scheme. To do this, you must create a stream bed, lining the bed with gravel and stones, and then open the stream where it joins the natural stream, allowing it to flow back into the natural stream at a later point. You’ll then want to fill in the natural stream bed with stone, dirt, or gravel. This is a simple way to create a stream, but most people are not lucky enough to own property that contains an existing natural stream of flowing water.

You can create your stream by building two ponds. One or both of the ponds can have water fountains or waterfalls included in the design. Then, you must create a pathway for the water to recirculate between the two ponds. This can be accomplished through embedding piping into your landscape soil to bring the water by way of a pump from the lower lying pond to the upper pond for the water to flow down the course again.

The streams and fountains you create in your landscape can be quite simple or very detailed and complex. Carefully place of the stones and gravel which create your plastic-lined stream bed so that the stream bed does not contain obstructions to the natural gravity-driven flow of water from the upper pond to the lower body of water. If large stones are used, they must be placed so they tilt downward toward the lower stream to prevent impeding the water’s flow.

Fountains add Personality to your Landscape

When considering a fountain for a pond, you may want to choose a dancing fountain that shoots water into the air in patterns. Pumps to create this type of fountain are not prohibitively expensive and the results can be extremely dramatic. You may want a simpler fountain which allows the water to flow through a traditional multi-tiered fountain structure which you purchase. You may want a very natural [fountain] created by stones that creates a fountain effect reminiscent of a waterfall. The style you choose should reflect your personality and your overall landscape.

No matter how you choose to design your backyard streams and fountains, you’ll find your backyard becomes a place to provide a bath to birds, drinking water to wildlife indigenous to your area, and a place of peace and serenity. You’ll love sitting and watching the water flow and hearing the babble of the stream.

Create Stunning Bonsai Trees - With Very Little Work?
There's finally a quick and easy, Step by Step, A to Z guide to creating your very own Bonsai Trees…even if you're new at it and you're not exactly a "green thumb".

Watching the Tube . . . Outdoors
14 Apr 2007 at 1:23pm
Maureen Jenson, the editor of Home Theater magazine, also sees what she calls ?a huge trend? in outdoor viewing, particularly in the area of weather-resistant equipment, which is designed to be left outdoors.
And we're off . . . it looks like this is a trend that is picking up steam and is not going to […]

Friday the 13th
13 Apr 2007 at 9:43pm
"A guru can cook for you, but can't eat for you" -Baba Hari Dass
"When bankers get together for dinner they discuss art. When artist get together for dinner they discuss money". -Oscar Wilde
The truest mark of greatness is insatiability". –Henry Fielding
..
..
"A leaf falls-
fluttering.
The Earth reaches up-
grabbing it"
-written in one of my sketch […]

Rescue Rick . . . to the rescue
12 Apr 2007 at 11:50pm
No it's not me, it's another Rick, and I don't know what to believe when looking at this site, take this line for
I want to create awareness regarding the frequency and severity of lawn mower s. I am the only yard safety advocate acting as an individual in the world. Indeed, I am the […]

Brick Driveway Detail
12 Apr 2007 at 9:41am
A couple of days ago I posted on Appreciation of Stone #26, and left a link to where there were more images in my Fotki folder for this job. There was a comment about the brick detail for the drive and after reading that I decided to delve into that aspect of the job a […]

Bad marketing #1
11 Apr 2007 at 10:51pm
Looking to add a fireplace to your patio? I don't think this site is going to sell many . . . .
Or it may be just an excuse to grab the url for fireplace-design and hope to sell ads.

Finally, obtain a great lawn almost instantly.
Give me ONE Day and I'll make
your lawn the most dazzling
spectacle on the block…