Wildlife Habitat Archives

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Barb — Leave a comment

Oregon Wildside-Autumn Update

Now that autumn is rolling on in and I’m winding down my garden season, I thought it was time for an update to my July entry on what was going on in my yard’s wildside. To get you up to speed, you can read the first entry in this wildside series here: Keeping A Wildside – Oregon Style.

Mostly, autumn is a time of mowing and cleaning up what’s left and reflecting on what I might do differently next year.

The whole idea of a wildside is to keep an area of your yard “wild” to see what grows there naturally. This provides a natural habitat for your native bees and birds to use for food and shelter. Allowing the plants to go to seed will keep your wildside growing from year to year.

I left a large patch of plants growing along the fence until I knew for certain what they were. It turns out they were prickly lettuce. They aren’t an especially pretty plant and I’m thinking next year I’ll pull them up when they sprout in the spring. (There will be a prickly lettuce nature study coming soon!)

My lovely mullein has sort of taken over the one side of our berm garden. I love mullein but we had so much of it that I went ahead and pulled it up by the roots to clear a space in the garden for some more yarrow. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of mullein for our family to enjoy along with the birds and bees.

The experience of allowing a wildside allows for me to change my mind about a particular plant once I identify it. I allow something to grow until I can see if it’s a native, if it’s beneficial to birds or birds or other animals, and if it isn’t something that’s going to completely take over the area. It’s a lot more work to allow things to grow before you decide if you need to weed them out, but I learn a little more each year and I’m getting much more proficient at knowing what should stay and what should go.

We mowed most everything down once it went to seed so we’re sure there will be a new crop of dandelions, yarrow, tansy mustard, purple dead nettle, and collomia once spring comes again.

We have one thing left to do this year before the weather turns too cold and the ground too hard to dig. We’ll be transplanting some native grasses from one side of our yard to fill in a bare spot. The grasses will help create more of a “wildside” on the side of my husband’s shop. Transplanting grasses is fairly easy and as long as you get a good root ball, they take off growing like nothing ever happened.

Observations

The ground squirrels are all back in their burrows until next spring. I’ll miss them periscoping up out of their holes to scurry along the tall grasses. Their holes are all still visible but there has been no sighting of them for weeks.

Our swallows and bluebirds are all gone from their nesting boxes and we’ve cleaned the nests out for the season. I find nests so interesting. Each species of bird has their own way of going about building a nest and with our attempt at keeping a wildside, I think it helps the birds have the right kind of nesting materials they need to successfully raise a clutch of eggs. You can see how the bird artists use the grasses, leaves, and twigs gleaned from our yard.

Good night wildside. We shall see you on the other side of winter!

Read the July 2020 entry that highlights our Oregon Style Wild Side Garden.

These are resources I have in my personal library that I flip through for information and inspiration in building my wildside garden.

Please note the links above are Amazon affiliate links to books I purchased with my own money and highly recommend.

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Barb — 2 Comments

Keeping a Wildside – Oregon Style

I’ve wanted to share a little bit about the process we’ve gone through as we have designed the landscaping on our half acre plot here in Central Oregon. When we moved here 3 years ago, there was a large expanse of lawn and not much else. My husband loves green grass in the summertime but even he admitted there was way too much to mow and water.

After experiencing the process of removing lawn in our previous yard in California, he was very open to not expanding the lawn, and eventually removing quite a bit to make way for more native plants and shrubs. (You can read about our California wildside here: Keeping it on the Wildside – Part 1 and Nature Study on the Wildside – Part 2)

It really takes a change in thinking to adjust to the idea of less lawn to make room for more native plants. He still pushes back on my desire to keep the dandelions around the edges of the lawn. We have many, many dandelions here, so the compromise is to keep them to one side of the yard, in my Oregon “wildside”.

What is my “wildside”?

I define my “wildside” as a place to allow the natives to grow until we can identify them. Then we decide on a case by case basis whether to pull them out by the roots or to nurture them into beautiful plants that add such variety to our yard. This means a shift from calling a plant a “weed” to viewing them as a valued plant in our garden plan.

Restoring a wildside where we remove lawn and transplant native grasses and other flowering plants is also a part of the broad plan to create more natural habitat in our new place.

Short List of My Wildside Plants

Dandelions

Purple dead nettle

Mullein

Tansy Mustard

Yarrow

There are still some plants I have yet to figure out if they’re on the “pull them out” list or the “to keep” list. It’s truly a learning process as I gain knowledge and understanding of the new habitat I live in.

I have one main wildside area in the yard and then several smaller pockets of plants that I’m also allowing to grow and make decisions about as we go through another summer season.

One area of wild things is alongside the driveway and I’ve had so many friends comment on how I’m letting the “weeds” grow and I should pull them out. (They are trying to be helpful.)

Secondary List of Wildside Plants

Strawberry blite

False dandelion

Collomia

Silver phacelia

The past three years have been a season of observation. We take daily walks around the yard and as each new plant matures, we identify it and then decide if it’s a good fit for our garden. It involves a lot of careful weeding, but in the end I think we’ll have a variety of plants that will be beneficial to the habitat in some way.

mammal hole wildside — This is one of the holes that something, probably a ground squirrel, has dug in my wildside garden. I need to put up the critter cam to see who is digging here.

What do I mean? We think about whether a particular plant is attractive to pollinators, provides food and shelter to birds or other animals, or is a showy plant that provides color for us to enjoy.

Where we are pulling out the lawn, we’re replacing it with native shrubs that will grow and thrive in Central Oregon. I’m hoping to support the birds and insects that have started to visit and reproduce here. It is so joyful to look out and see the nests being built right within sight of our back widow.

We daily see bees, moths, butterflies, and other insects visiting the flowers.

The birds are using the native grasses as nesting materials, eating the seeds and berries from the plants, and taking sips of water from the puddles left in the dirt and on the rock walls we built.

So there you have a brief overview of how we’re creating a new wildside in our Central Oregon space. There is so much more to share, so I will save that for a future post. It’s a hobby and a passion that I could work on during the time isolated at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. It doesn’t look like the “staying safe at home” time is ending very soon, so I will probably update you dear readers later this fall with any changes or outstanding observations we’ve made.

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Right now there is a discount code for $10 off an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.

Discount Code: SUMMERNATURE

Code expires: 8/1/2020

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Barb — 2 Comments

Creating Wildlife Habitat

This is the time of year that the rewards of creating a wildlife habitat are coming clear as the insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals visit our yard each day. There seems to be someone enjoying the space at all times. I hear buzzing and chirping during the day and see signs that someone has come to drink water and dig around in the leaves at night. I even have seen where some deer have been sleeping around on the side of our house. My husband saw a fox one evening and I heard an owl in our tree.

The yard is so alive and full of surprises each day.

I highly recommend the creating of a wildlife habitat that fits your local area’s wild residents.

The National Wildlife Federation website is a wealth of information on how to create your own habitat, step by step. Read this article about creating a wildlife habitat in your own yard. There is also a short video to watch: http://blog.nwf.org/2016/02/this-week-in-nwf-history-creating-wildlife-habitat-in-your-yard/

Once you certify your garden online, you can order a flag or sign to proudly display in your yard. I ordered the classic sign and we mounted it near our front walkway. Here are all the signs available: National Wildlife Federation Sign Shop.

Would you like a free printable plan for creating your own Wildlife Habitat? I created one for you to use as you access your yard for the four elements you will need to become certified.

Download and print yours here: Wildlife Habitat Plan

For more information, use this link to the National Wildlife Federation: Certify!

I wrote an entry a few years ago about the making of our own wildlife habitat. This entry mostly shows our backyard and how we planted things and arranged the yard to accommodate a variety of wildlife. Read more about the specific things you need to create a living space in your own yard: Making Your Backyard a Wildlife Habitat. You may find this entry helpful: Birdwatching 101- Attracting Birds with feeders and plants.

Here is another entry that shows the transformation of our front yard into a more wildlife friendly habitat: Frontyard Remodel. We have since added a mason bee house that you can read about in this post: Mason Bee House. Here is an entry that shows our frontyard in all four seasons: From My Window.

Winter Garden For Wildlife Part 1: This is mostly about the plants you can add to your yard to make a winter habitat for wildlife.

Winter Garden for Wildlife – Part 2: This post will give you simple ideas for attracting and sheltering wildlife in the winter months.

You may wish to read this entry: Gardening For Birds. In this entry, I share how I have added specific plants to attract and nourish our backyard birds.

Now that summer is here, you may be spending more time in your yard or garden. Take a few minutes to observe any wildlife that visits! Use the printable above to make your wildlife habitat plan soon and then go over to the National Wildlife Federation website to get certified. Then, proudly display your sign and tell your neighbors about the program so they can participate too.

Have you thought about creating a wildlife habitat?

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Tag: Wildlife Habitat