Certified wildlife habitat!

One of our goals for the new year was to turn the front lawn by the garage into a wildlife habitat, and I’m happy to report back that we did!

The check off sheet for certification:

Food, water, cover, places to raise young and sustainable practices

My rough draft last year

After lots of hard work getting rid of the grass

And this week!

And now all of the requirements:

food: we have raspberries, lots of pollen and nectar, a walnut tree and sunflowers for both pollen and nectar as well as seeds

water: we have 2 bird baths and a tiny pond back by the garden

cover: we created a small brush pile and we have a wooded area and tiny pond

places to raise young: we have milkweed for baby catapillars, pond, bat house, pollinator hotel and trees for the birds

sustainable practices: we capture rain water, use lots of mulch to reduce watering and keep soil from eroding, reduce watering, plant lots of native plants (and plan on adding more every year!), hand pick weeds and invasive plants/insects, reduce lawn area and compost like no one’s business!

 

We started many native plants indoors last winter (coneflowers, milkweed, yarrow, bee balm)

I keep seeing beautiful cardinals enjoying the seeds

Not Native, but a polllen and nectar source

Nasturtiums and the pollinators are enjoying the blooms now

Echinacea

Black eyed Susan (a Maryland favorite!)

Another variety of black eyed Susan with a native bee

Birdhouse gourds volunteered to come up here

Upcycled bamboo sign post

The solar lights along the walkway

It is far from perfect, but I plan on working on and adding to it every year. My husband enjoys not having to cut the grass in that area anymore and the wildlife have really moved in to this area! I see so many different birds, lots of different bees and beautiful butterflies flitting around. Plus, with more birds, I have had less issues with some insects in the garden! I’ll post a picture of it at the end of the season! Keep blooming friends!