After losing a year-long political battle to save a wetlands, I decided to take control. A friend told me about converting my small yard into a native plant wildlife refuge. Turns out it is not hard to do. Here's the gist: pollinating insects and moths and butterflies are essential to life because they produce the caterpillars that feed baby birds and they pollinate the plants.
America's yards are mostly dead zones for them. Grass is a wildlife dead zone because animals can't hide in it or feed from it (it helps to allow clover and dandelions which is why my yard is a rabbit-happy place). But most of the ornamental plantings we buy from Home Depot and other garden nurseries are loaded with non native plants that are lovely to look at and easy to grow, but most insects in can't use them. It is not an accident that my Monarda flowers (bee balm) are the bee, bird, and hummingburd-busiest place in my yard. Monarda (Bee-balm) is native to New England. So a few weeks ago I started adding more native plantings and gradually am removing my grass.
Then last week, just when I was feeling dejected about climate news, a Monarch came to my yard. She stayed three days, announcing hope, that we can regenerate this planet.
I wanted to tell you about this project but so many site glitches got in the way. Then this morning this interactive article popped up from the Washington Post, complete with a monarch flying through the article, so I knew it was time to post about it here.
Resources: If you live in eastern Mass, then Garden in the Woods aka the Native Plant Trust is the place to start. But anywhere else, you can google The National Wildlife Federation and they have got you covered. The top authority on the native plant topic is entomologist Doug Tallamy at University of Delaware. He's the native plant guru. In Texas, the LadyBird Johnson center near Austin is another native plant trust Mecca.
I'm collecting ideas for how to reconfigure my yard. Also even if you don't have a yard, just putting up a window box with some milkweed will help the monarchs. Or any number of other plants. I like this photo. It's much bigger than my yard, but the stepping stones are the right idea for how a yard can become a woodland pathway.
@jeanne-mayell that is beautiful, Jeanne. When i first moved into the house where i live now, there was grass on all four sides. I started planting, and putting in paths, similar to the picture you posted above. Now there is only a small patch of grass left- just big enough for 2 or 3 people to have a picnic. It is so much nicer this way.
@jeanne-mayell Thank you for this entry Re native plants… I’ve pass the site on to friends… we’ve been talking about slowly adapting our gardens! Also just picked up my first book on rewilding!
I let the forest on the edges of my lot gradually and naturally take over much of the lawn. That's the lazy way to "rewild". 😀
For those who are interested in native wildflowers, there is a company called American Meadows that sells seeds for different regions. I'm not very good at growing things so I buy a big bag of seeds and throw them all over any place that needs some filler. I've found that if I throw enough down, some will grow.
When I married and moved into our present house many years ago, @jeanne-mayell, my husband who had owned the property for a few years, had a beautiful backyard with only two cottonwood trees and a decrepit shed taken over by a family of raccoons. He was not and never has been a gardener! But I am.
Over the years, I dismantled the shed, placed a new one in a different location and planted two lilacs trees, a Japanese maple and a dogwood tree as well bushes and flowers to attract birds, butterflies and pollinators. It’s my most rewarding long term project which I take great pleasure in no matter the season.
My most successful plants attracting butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds have been the following:rhododendrons, lilac trees, coneflowers (echinacea), English lavender (lavandula augustifolia), phlox (phloxpaniculata), milkweed (asclepias syriaca), yarrow (achillea milefolium), Sea Holly (eryngium) and African lilies (agapanthus africanus).
But I live in a zone 8.
Therefore, my African lilies can survive winter by being covered in thick mulch during the cold months. In zones lower than 7 or 8, either remove them from the ground or keep them in pots and place them in a cool inside place for wintering. They need coolness to flower but it’s one of the most prolific plants for attracting bees, hummingbirds and butterflies to a garden, especially if combined with the ones mentioned above. Wildflower seeds were planted in one small section of the garden that never gets mowed, clover in another and two veggie raised garden beds in yet another. The leaves from the trees stay on the ground during the winter. I rake them only in the spring and use much for compost.
Gardening gives me great pleasure, working the soil keeps me grounded and I love my garden in every season, if only by feeding birds in winter. During those cold months, I dream and plan which annuals I will plant the following spring and what I can do to improve the garden in general. It’s a never ending work in progress that keeps me happy.
Jeanne, thank you for starting this topic! I took up gardening during the pandemic, and have become passionate about native plants. Here in Texas, they have performed the best during the brutal drought and heat of this past summer. They feed the migratory birds and the monarchs as they make their way north and south each year. And they create a distinctive sense of place in our yards, neighborhoods, and cities. The monarch has so much to teach us spiritually about hardship and resilience, and it is absolutely heartbreaking that their numbers are in such severe decline. I'm planting some milkweed this fall to do my bit.
I second Jeanne's recommendation of all of Doug Tallamy's books. And I constantly refer to the native plant database on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's website. Although the Wildflower Center is based in Austin, it has information on native plants for all 50 states and the Canadian provinces. You can get lost for hours there.
There is something so meaningful about creating spaces for other (non-human) beings on this planet to thrive.
ok, here is an excerpt from a NYT article (which i cannot read, bc paywalls) that i found on another website:
Horace Smith blew up a lot of beaver dams in his life.
A rancher here in northeastern Nevada, he waged war against the animals, frequently with dynamite. Not from meanness or cruelty; it was a struggle over water. Mr. Smith blamed beavers for flooding some parts of his property, Cottonwood Ranch, and drying out others.
But his son Agee, who eventually took over the ranch, is making peace. And he says welcoming beavers to work on the land is one of the best things he’s done.
“They’re very controversial still,” said Mr. Smith, whose father died in 2014. “But it’s getting better. People are starting to wake up.”
As global warming intensifies droughts, floods and wildfires, Mr. Smith has become one of a growing number of ranchers, scientists and other “beaver believers” who see the creatures not only as helpers, but as furry weapons of climate resilience.
Last year, when Nevada suffered one of the worst droughts on record, beaver pools kept his cattle with enough water. When rains came strangely hard and fast, the vast network of dams slowed a torrent of water raging down the mountain, protecting his hay crop. And with the beavers’ help, creeks have widened into wetlands that run through the sagebrush desert, cleaning water, birthing new meadows and creating a buffer against wildfires.
@unk-p So many great posts here. I will take them one by one. I LOVE that NY TIMes article. I do subscribe (for $40/year). I keep quitting right before renewal and they ask me what it would take to keep me on and I say, $40/year, so they give it to me. I wish I could repost the whole piece here, because of the great photos, but that would be a no-no. Beavers create whole wetland eco-systems.
@iridium @ana I love your method. Want to try it. Just cast it to the wind.
@gbs, I love that you are in Texas and doing this. I found out today that one of the three oldest native plant trusts is in Austin, like you said, and started by LadyBird Johnson. Doesn't Texas also have the largest wind farm in the country?
@seaholly, I love what you are doing in zone 8. Wow. Zone 8 is north. And now I know where the name sea holly comes from. Beautiful sea holly.
Below is my poor attempt at capturing that monarch who came to my yard bringing a message of hope. I just knew when I saw her that the message was that the Monarchs will prevail and so will we.
My area is full of lawns. Green lawns. Should be illegal here. We live in a freakin' desert, not Ireland. (I think Nevada just outlawed new lawns, hoping CA does too.)
With our current heat wave (2 weeks long so far of temps over 100 every day), we decided to go ahead and kill the lawn and curb strip. (Water bills here are ridiculous - $400 a month - but this already reduced it to $200!)
This week I am meeting with a person I call my Ginger Bear Tree Nerd. He is an expert at one of our local nurseries, to redesign the front. A desert-scape.
Long story short, we also accidentally killed 3 trees, natives (Jacaranda, desert willow). Not our fault. The neighbors all use their sprinklers too much, and our front yard was becoming a bog.
My landscaper gave us an estimate and he will be removing 8 inches of soil and using 8 inches of sand and decomposed granite to regrade our front yard so the water from neighbors doesn't pool.
GBTN and I will work on installing plants that are native, including putting a plant barrier of Hopseed - which can absorb the extra water from the neighbors but is technically a desert plant.
Some plants I have in mind: palo verde, yucca, agave, deer grass, elephant food, whale's tongue, hopseed, nopal.
Prior owners have left old growth roses which are noisette type and so they don't use much water, and they're pretty so I'll keep them in their flower beds.
Will post a pic in late October when the project is completed!
My landscaper gave us an estimate and he will be removing 8 inches of soil and using 8 inches of sand and decomposed granite to regrade our front yard so the water from neighbors doesn't pool.
Don't let them haul away your topsoil- that stuff is gold. You can use it to make a raised bed somewhere else in the yard. There are lots of things you can use it for, even if you just pile it somewhere in the back until you decide what to do with it.
I have a saying for my property, "less mowing, more growing".
Slowly adding butterfly bushes, gooseberries, black raspberries and other fruits, with the mighty oak tree in the center of the front yard, I have enrolled in my own applied biology course.
No grades here, but I have been blessed with butterflies, birds of all sorts, and in the early evening hummingbirds, followed by lightning bugs and then owls as the night draws on.
@ana I LOVE American Meadows!!! I got a glorious wildflower mix for my Zone and made a large section of yard.. Meadow. I also just ordered clover seed to help with my all natural yard of "weeds" (a weed is just a plant growing where someone doesn't want it) I already have clover and a mix of grasses,mosses, and local wildflowers like milkweed, lyre leaf sage , plantain,dandelion,false dandelion and more. I want to convert to all clover as much as possible. I have planted native trees as well such as redbud and persimmon etc. My several varieties of oaks and pines and hackberry and black cherry and sweet gum and such provide a lot of shelter and food for local wildlife. I enjoy lots of birds, small mammals such as squirrels, chipmunks, possums, armadillos,raccoons etc and rat snakes,frogs,toads etc. Deer come through the yard sections not fenced off. There is a lot of growth happening in this area ..losing rural status and being semi-rural ... just in our county alone 1300 new homes are being built currently and more grocery stores and land that was home to my wild neighbors is being lost at an alarming rate. We also have black bear, coming in to yards more and more, coyotes and foxes and bobcats. I will provide shelter,food and water resources as much as I am able. I also pray that they leave enough green space to let the creatures live in peace. It's as much their homes as any humans.. yet they are given little regard or care around here. Not even thought of by many.
@ana There is a lot of growth happening in this area ..losing rural status and being semi-rural ... just in our county alone 1300 new homes are being built currently and more grocery stores and land that was home to my wild neighbors is being lost at an alarming rate.
I hate when that happens!!! It's absolutely visceral for me. The family homestead was in the semi-rural stage when I was growing up and now it's part of the megalopolis. I spent my childhood watching the encroachment. My reaction was to buy a fixer-upper in an urban historic district (of a different city) so I'd never have to watch adjacent woods being torn down. (And the house had been vacant for several years, so I restored it to useful housing stock thus (hopefully) making one less new house needing to be built. )
@ana It was the "talk of the town" in the numbers of black bears and deer that were "urbanizing"... along with the raccoons and coyotes who adapted to "urban living" many years ago around here.
Many complaining bitterly of their presence and wanting them destroyed/eliminated. Heartbreaking really people...cause.. they were here first and y'all keep taking their homes away from them and complaining when they adapt and share YOUR home!!!
There are better answers for all out there... just getting these people to relax and become less rigid in their thinking about the sentient life we share habitat with is the big first step I feel.
Front yard project is DONE!!!! We ripped out the lawn and replaced it with desert friendly and mostly native plants, decomposed granite sand instead of topsoil, and gravel instead of mulch. Looking forward to lower water bills. Happy to undo the ridiculousness of grass in a desert valley where we're running out of water - what is this, Ireland??
@jeanne-mayell @bluebelle @lovendures @unk-p
@laura-f, I love what you've done to the front yard! And it works beautifully with the house. I live in Virginia and would love to rip up our front lawn, but need more direction on what to plant. I grew up in the city and I'm not a big gardener. Of course native plants, and something low maintenance.
Love the pop of red door in the picture.
Laura, congratulations. Nice work. You have inspired me and no doubt others with you brave and bold choice.
Hope to go lawless sometime next summer. Am hacking away at it (literally, my lawn is getting smaller as I add new natives).