Hi everyone,
I want to know what are you favorite plants, be it shrubs, perennials or trees, to attract the wildlife to your homes. I want to fill up my little lot with as many different plants as possible. I'm more into indigenous plants than non, but I'm interesting in hearing what any of you have planted to draw the creatures in!
Thanks!
Terry
Attracting the wildlife
wild strawberries attracted eastern box turtles to my yard last spring
Good for you TerryR! I started doing the exact same thing about 5 years ago and now have lots of stuff around with berries to feed birds. Here are the berries of some of the viburnums I planted. This one is a double file viburnum. It took about 3 years of growing beofore it got berries.
This is what the shrub looks like its quite tall.
This is a cranberry viburnum and is quite popular with birds. The berries do turn red.
I also have some elderberry shrubs. Boy are THESE popular.
I think this is the cranberry viburnum again once the berries are red.
Yes, that's what that was. I had to wait to post because the picture is so small I couldn't tell until I clicked on it lol!
Here is a picture of one of my current bushes.
Here is a black current shrub.
American Beautyberry gets its berries at the end of the summer and in addition to feeding birds they are knock down drag out gorgeous!
My Washington hawthorn got berries for the first time this summer. It has been planted at my house for 5 years.
I also have two chokecherry bushes. I have since heard they are not that popular as food for birds but I did see a cardinal today eating the berries.
Here is my spice bush. It is still pretty small and it got berries this year for the first time also. It is attractive to the spice bush butterfly also.
Oops - that second picture I posted isn't the viburnum shrub it is a winterberry holly. Here is a close up of the berries.
Here is a serviceberry shrub. In the spring when the berries get ripe it positively shakes from the eating frenzy lol!
Around the bottom of the serviceberry are some sunshine blue blueberry shrubs. They stay pretty small.
Here is what the berries look like.
branches, wild strawberries?! Yummy...lol...not sure anything but me would eat them! Do you live near water to attract turtles? that would be really neat to have turtles!
lilyfantn, how long as your garden been growing? We bought this house a year ago, so all my stuff is still quite small. I planted a lot of viburnams, elderberry, spicebush, new jersey tea's, serviceberry, the native euonymus, bottlebrush and red buckeyes and I can't remember what all else. Last fall I planted a bunch of perennials, I just can't remember half of what I planted! I'm born and raised in IL, but my husband's place of business moved down to TN. Chattanooga. We lived there for 17 months, business went belly up, bought out and we knew it was just a matter of time when all the machines went to Mexico, so we moved back home. Anyway, I had the American Beautyberry there. I went to town planting all wildlife plants there. Regrettably, I couldn't bring many back with me. And unfortunately, the beautyberry isn't hardy enough for here :( I'm surprised you have it there! I thought it started at zone 7 and I see you're in zone 6? love the photos!
I can't wait till my plants get of some size to see what all I get!
Thank you both for sharing!
Terry
Hi terryr!
DH is the gardener in our family and he's put in a couple of small ponds and 2 bog gardens, one sun, one shade. Since then many of the migrating birds stop through our yard. We've also seen new evidence of opussums too.
The bogs have also allowed us to grow some great native plants that would have otherwise died out
Welcome to DG and the wildlife forum,
Stacey
Hi Stacey!
Thank you for the warm welcome!
Could you explain how he put in the bogs? And what keeps them wet? A pond! I would love a pond. It's on my list of things to do! I'd love to see pictures if you're willing to share. I was coming home last July from the local 4th of July fireworks and saw an opussum, 1 block up walking across the road. So I know they're here...right smack dab in the middle of town! I have a feeling the towns just going to love me!
Terry
Oh Stacey you are SO lucky!! I have to do everything myself because DH just isn't interested in gardening AT ALL. He also stays so busy with boy scouts and he coaches a middle school science teams. He has done a few things but it takes so much asking and waiting that I just do it myself now. I would LOVE a pond though and I wouldn't want to try that one myself. I do have a creek not too far away and get the benefit of wildlfe from there. I have a couple of ideas for a bog garden too involving digging a hole big enough for a bag of peat but haven't done that yet. No wonder you post such fabulous wildlife pictures - you have the perfect environment!
Terry - you sound like my kind of person!! I love possums too. I started planting my wild life stuff about 5 years ago. At this point if I had to move I wouldn't particularly miss my house but I would just hate to leave the yard lol! Here is a picture of a possum that visits at night and eats the leftovers I put out for the birds. He's so cute. :-)
Here he is looking back at me to see if I'm still there.
Now he's trying to blend in with the balcony fence so I will think he isn't there anymore lol!
Love the opossum pictures lilyfan. The last one is really wonderful!
I have to say though, my pictures, for the most part are not taken on our property. I spend at least one day most weekends out exploring with either my DH or other friends. (Which is why DH does the gardening) Today's trip is the Withlacoochee River!! Woohoo...can't wait to see what we see! LOL
terry, here's some info I got from Paul. The size of the bog is only dependant on the size of the pond liner you want to use. He dug out an area 18 -24 inches deep and laid in the liner. He then poked a few holes in the liner with a pitchfok for slooow drainage. A 2 inch layer of rock went in next and then he filled the hole with a mixture of top soil and compost, about 50-50%. The bog stays nice and damp most of the time but if it starts to get really dry he soaks it with well water. The bogs also make a great place to start cuttings! We've done the same thing in pots nearby.
When he put in the sun bog he butted it up against the small (preformed HomeDepot type) ponds. Bad move...it's very hard to weed that side. It's still very much a work in progress because we're away alot and he puts in a lot of work hours.
Literally anything with berries, or dense/shrubby enough to provide nesting sites & protection will attract both birds & small mammals.
Water is also a big draw.
terryr,
I live near a stream (1/2 mile away) that leads out to a bay and also close to pine barrens (I think that's where the turtles live)
lilyfan, those pics are so cute! Don't you just love them? I would be really sad to leave this house. Our house in TN, I could have cared less about, but leaving the garden was awful. And to think they ripped it all out just adds to my heartbreak. My husband loves working outside with me....just waiting to see what the heck I'm going to do next...lol.....
Stacey, Thanks for the info on making a bog! I think we can handle that. I'll start out small to test the waters so to speak. My husband helps me a lot in the yard, so the 2 of us together should get it. So what did you see at the Withlacoochee River? That's quite a mouthful! LOL!
Breezymeadow, can you be just a bit more specific on plant types?
branches, that's just cool. You're lucky!
Terry
Interesting about the box turtles and wild strawberries-- I'd love to have turtle visitors in our yard. I have seen them around the area, so maybe I'll give them a try!
Let's see, we planted a few oak trees for the wild turkeys. (They love the acorns in our neighbors yard.) And to try to attract red-headed woodpeckers. Not likely since red-headeds seem to be very scarce these days. Not so, wild turkeys, though.
And I bought some beautyberries, too. They have some varieties now that are hardier than others--so they said at the nursery... I saw them planted in Columbus, Ohio and they were beautiful and thriving.
Serviceberries are fun planted with a view of the house, but someone complained about all the mess from the birds in one thread. Our birds seem well behaved, but the trees are out in the lawn, not over a sidwalk.
The hummingbirds love our buckeye trees.
Mimosa trees for the Monarchs. (Don't know if you can grow those in Illinois) and other butterfly plants -- milkweed, verbenas, etc.
We have left some snags and stumps around and they are planted with vines and climbers... the HBs, bees, dragonflies, etc., seem to like those, too.
Sunflowers in summer.
I am not sure what hummingbird plants are indigenous to Illinois, but we get lots of fun from planting some lobelia, monarda, ipoemoea, coral honeysuckle, in a container or two.
I have started my HB and butterfly annual seeds this week. Am trying 'Wintersowing'.and under lights. Seed starting is fairly new for me, but think if I can get good at it, I'll make my gardening dollars go farther and have interesting choices for the garden. We'll see! :-)
Welcome to DG Terry! I started all kinds of plantings about 8 years ago and have many birds and animals that come by now, It had just improved 10 fold here since I had added the plantings and ponds over the years! I get foxes, coytes, woodchucks, chipmonks, possums, skunks, raccoons, deer, bobcat, squirrels, flying squirrels, fishercat, rabbits, owls, hummingbirds, hummingbird moths, all types of birds, frogs, salamanders ect... Lots of nests in the spring and summer!!! Two books that I would suggest are: "Bird-scaping your garden, By George Adams", And " Gardening for wildlife, By Craig Tufts and Peter Loewer" ( Good books -Especially the one by George Adams) Some of what I planted are: Elderberries ( Birds LOVE Elderberries!) viburnums, Moutain Ash, Blueberry bush, Winterberry, Wild Srawberry, Blackberry,serviceberry, Mullberry,... Don't forget vines, A lot of the birds here nest in the vines in the summer, I have Virginia creeper, honeysuckle, Trumpet Vine and a few others that I can't think of the name of right now, I also have some 'Scrubby Patches' Which are highly attractive to the birds! Some of the perenials that are attractive to them are: Yucca, Bee-Balm, Wildrose, Cardinal Flower, Sun-flower, thistle, torch lily and Blazing star, Theres more, But, I can't think of those right now either, There are so many things you can do or add that will really attract a large variety! I'm sure more people will add some info here for you and there are some really good books and sites that have some great info too, Best of luck to you in whichever plants/shrubs/trees/accesseries you decide to use!
Lots of great suggestions here and its making me itchy to go outside and do something lol!
At my house the favorite blooms for my hummers is salvia guaranitica. Its a tall blue sage that is a perennial here. They also like salvia coccinea (sometimes called Lady in Red) which you can sometimes find in seed packs.
I really like to plant good old lantana arond the beds too. By late summer it gets shrub like when my daylilies are slowing down. Lots of butterflies like it too.
And you just can't beat butterfly bushes for both butterflies and hummer appeal. I was outside trimming mine back the other day and found 3 praying mantis egg cases in it so I left those branches on.
Wow! I'm with lilyfan! I got a catalog from Prairie Nursery yesterday and I spent the afternoon dreaming about what all I just can't live without! lily, do have any host plants for some of the butterflies? Milkweed (something like Asclepias sullivantii) is one for the monarch butterfly. And spice bush (Lindera bezoin) is a host plant for the spicebush swallowtail butterfly.
Hey t, I know I saw beautyberry listed on the website for my local nursery last fall. Unfortunately, they were out and I couldn't find anyone who knew anything! This isn't a big box store, but a locally owned nursery. I haven't seen any mimosa trees around here, I don't think they're for this zone. As for serviceberry and the "mess" left behind by birds....it always seems the people who complain like that don't really want the birds or if they do, they must be neat birds. Doesn't make any sense to me! Bird poop just hoses off.....
Iris, that's quite a list of wildlife you have there! I'm impressed! Are you out in the country? I can see the towns reaction if I had bobcats here! oops! Thanks for the welcome and the book recommendations. I'll look into them. I had an elderberry but towards late summer, it all turned brown and looked dead. I'm waiting for spring to come so I can see if it really is dead or what.
Terry, I've only seen the bobcat twice since I've lived here (Been here 16 years), though I do find it's tracks now and then. I actually live in town right down from the main expressway, But the back part of our property (and the majority of the sides and front are surounded by woods, So it does help make it easier to attract birds and wildlife.
I hope your elderberry comes back in the Spring, I had lost a few of mine because my honey decided to give them a short trim at the wrong time of year, But, Live and learn I guess. Here's a photo that I have of a screech owl that's using a nest box at the present time ( I love the owls!)....
Coyote in the front yard..
Flying Squirrel in his nesting house...
Flying Squirrel...What a sweet picture!! LOL
Thank's Floridian! They use this same box every year, And at this time, There are usually three or four in this one box .... They also use another box that is directly across the yard from this one .In the late Spring/ Early summer, They usually come to the bird-feeders at night to eat.
Iris, Are these boxes made to flying squirrel specs or did they just move into a nesting box? What a treat to be able to watch them. I've only seen one FS...it came down our chimney and landed on the hearth. It was a little stunned but fine and released moments later
$0.02 added here.
I appreciate all the work that's obviously gone into collecting the plants mentioned above, which obviously are bringing in birds and butterflies (photo-doc'd and all). However, some of where terryr (aka Terrier, Wild Raisin) is going is.........what about incorporating more plants that originated with the local insects and birds? Long term, that's a great way to go.
Think of it along the lines of: bright advertisements to get the "shoppers" in the door (non-natives like Japanese beautyberry, mimosa, and butterflybush). Once you've got their attention, get the local natives entrenched that provide for more of the participants' lifecycle (like nesting sites, larval food, high-quality fruit forage, etc.) than the glitterati. Aim to gradually reduce/eliminate the non-natives (esp. the ones with proven/potential invasiveness FOR YOUR AREA (always learn about this stuff so you aren't inadvertently wiping out those things you are trying to enhance and protect) so that you make an example of the success of this philosophy to others who need some motivation.
And best of all: continue to bring the discussion and experiences here, for more to benefit from.