Inviting Creation To My Yard by Tim Keyes
February 22, 2008
My wife and I chose our 1920’s house in a neighborhood near downtown Atlanta in large part because of the yard. Our little 1/8th of an acre pie-slice shaped lot sits on a hill. Two stately Southern Red Oaks bookend our street frontage and successive rows of azaleas work their way upslope to our front porch and brick house. We knew that March would be stunning, with the azaleas and dogwoods in full flower, but as a lazy gardener, I was most drawn to the postage-stamp sized lawn, which could easily be weed-whacked in 10 minutes or less. Beyond my own indolence lay the knowledge that ecologically, a close-cropped expanse of grass is not much better than asphalt. While we Americans often feel drawn to vast swaths of golf-green-styled yards, if one of your objectives is to invite wildlife, this urge must be fought tooth and nail.
Fortunately for me, establishing good habitat for wildlife is a perfect project for a lazy gardener. Once shrubs and mid-story trees are planted, they take much less work to maintain than grass. Dead trees and branches, as long as they pose no threat to life and limb, can be left standing to provide nesting cavities for birds. Sticks and branches that fall can be left or stacked in loose piles as shelter for the salamanders and wrens rather than laboriously dragged to the curb. And since a weed is by definition merely an unwanted plant, you can follow Cal DeWitt’s suggestion for easily ridding your yard of weeds: “Look out at them all and say ‘Welcome’”.
Inviting wildlife to your yard is a wonderful way to begin to learn the language of the created order.
Our yards are the tiny slices of the created world where we will spend the most time, and can have the most direct impact. While our gardening practices won’t solve the great problems of species loss, they may help on a small scale to keep our common species common. Given recent alarming declines of some of our most common and beloved birds reported by the National Audubon Society, this is a worthy goal. Inviting wildlife to your yard is also a wonderful way to begin to learn the language of the created order and take the first steps at creation stewardship on a micro- scale (see my column in the last issue of CC). What better place to begin taking seriously Jesus’ challenge to behold the birds of the air and the flowers of the field than by inviting them into our own yards? It may also spark an interest and commitment that extends well beyond the boundaries of your yard.
God’s creatures have four basic needs: 1) Food 2) Water 3) Shelter and 4) Space. Any project to attract backyard wildlife must begin with an honest assessment of what is possible. In assessing my yard in light of these requirements, I saw that some food was provided by the acorns, flowers, and berries of several trees and shrubs (we have dogwoods, hollies, oaks, and mulberries that generate abundant fruit in fall). Various layers of vines, shrubs, mid-story trees and canopy trees provided some good shelter. Unfortunately , there was no standing water (apart from our dirt crawl-space after a heavy rain), and with 1/8th of an acre (minus the house footprint), there certainly wasn’t a lot of space.
Given our constraints, the yard wasn’t going to provide vast expanses of open space, nor could it provide decent grassland or wetland habitat. We could certainly work with the deciduous forest theme however, and add to the plantings of shrubs and trees as well as adding supplemental feeders and nest boxes.
FOOD:
We have supplemented the fruiting and flowering plants with others such as American Beautyberry and flowering dogwood, both of which provide berries. We have stuck to plants native to the region for several reasons. First, they are adapted to the soils, climate and local pathogens, and are unlikely to require additional fertilizing, watering, or pesticides once they are established. They are often host plants for native butterflies. Just as important, they don’t carry the risk of becoming “invasive” or taking over everything else in the yard like many non-native plants do. (Lists of native plants to your region can be found at the links below.) Suitable species will vary from place to place, but try to provide flowers, fruits, nuts, acorns, and cones throughout the year.
Bird feeders supplement wild foods, especially during the colder months. If you are going to have a single feeder, use black-oiled sunflower seeds, which attract the broadest array of birds. Mixed seed tends to have lots of filler that birds ignore and scatter to the ground as they search for their favorites, which are often. . . you guessed it, black-oiled sunflower seeds. Poorly-placed feeders can unnecessarily increase risk to the birds. The beautiful picture window you enjoy watching birds through can prove deadly, as they often see greenery reflected in the glass and collide with it. If this occurs, move the feeder close to the window, typically within 3 feet, to reduce the speed when birds strike, or use decorations on the glass itself to alert birds to its otherwise invisible presence. If cats are around (your own should be inside!)… keep feeders far enough from bushes that cats cannot stalk birds at the feeder.
Nectar feeders can attract hummingbirds, marvels of physics and engineering, the world’s only birds that can fly backwards as easily as forwards. I use a 4:1 boiled mixture of water to sugar with no food coloring. The effect of food coloring on hummingbirds isn’t entirely known, but it may be harmful and is utterly unnecessary, as most feeders themselves are brightly colored to attract the birds in the first place.
While I mainly feed birds for my own enjoyment, in bad weather feeders can supply a helpful resource for birds. Ultimately however, I would certainly hate it if my lack of care led to any harm. Periodically washing feeders with soap and water reduces the chance that your feeder may become a site for the transmission of various diseases such as Salmonella.
WATER:
Being married to a water conservation advisor seriously limited my options when it came to providing water for
wildlife. Any visions of a re-circulating series of pools and waterfalls down the front slope quickly evaporated. Even though she purchased a birdbath and dripper for me, she found it so difficult to see water dripping in our back yard that it took several months before she let me leave the dripper on (at a very low rate). Drippers and misters are powerful attractants for birds, and will bring in many more than a simple bird bath will. Like the feeders, bird baths must be cleaned regularly as they rapidly become soiled.
As we have been experiencing a drought in the southeast, we have just started to use the collected condensation from our air conditioning unit to water our plants and refill the bird bath. Overnight when we run the AC, we collect about 3 gallons of water. This easily meets our outdoor watering needs with plenty to top off the birdbath.
If our water needs increase in the future, we could add gutters to part of our roof and collect runoff in a rain barrel. In an average rainfall year, I have estimated that our 1,200-square-foot roof could collect 37,500 gallons of water, clearly more than we could ever use!
In other humid climates a similar system could provide enough water for a small frog pond, which provides the added benefit of the nocturnal chorus of frogs to the diurnal bird chorus.
SHELTER AND SPACE:
The existing plants that so attracted us to the property already provide significant amounts of cover and shelter, from the ground level, through the shrubs and small trees, to the towering oaks. As you assess your yard, think vertically, and try to ensure that at every level, from ground to tree top, there is some form of cover for wildlife. We have added a number of bird and bat boxes to add additional shelter, for roosting and nesting sites. We have enjoyed mixed success. While so far only squirrels have used our Screech-owl box, Carolina Chickadees have nested and roosted in another box. Despite many suitable options I have provided, the wrens insist on nesting in the oddest corners—the box of kindling, the Mason jar in a hanging planter (not sure how the jar got there).
Sadly, much of the cover in our yard is provided by non-native invasive species. Our yard plant list reads like an ecological rogue’s gallery: English ivy, nandina, Chinese privet, wisteria, autumn olive and microstegium occupy precious space, and our next project will be to gradually replace them with beneficial native species.
Starting in our yards, we can begin the process of becoming stewards of Creation. This may begin, as it did in another garden long ago, with simply naming what is there. From there, an honest assessment of our yards may uncover a number of projects, simple and complex that we can undertake to provide a better space for the wildlife that shares our corner of creation. Taking care to do no harm, and trying to restore something lost (removing invasive species), are important things to keep in mind. Ultimately however, we will come to enjoy, serve and protect this microcosm of creation more completely, and understand better what stewardship means at a larger scale.
Tim Keyes is currently a Wildlife Biologist with the Georgia Wildlife Resource Division, focusing on non-game birds. He has been involved with wildlife education, research and conservation for the last 15 years.
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