Spring is just around the corner, and it’s never too early to start planning your garden, especially when you’re getting tired of winter! This spring, make sure your gardening and landscaping plans take your local animals, birds, and insects into account.
How can you make your yard a humane haven for neighborhood wildlife? The Humane Society of the United States has put together a practical list of tips. Here’s how you can ensure that your backyard is safe for local wildlife.
- Provide a source of fresh clean water, such as a birdbath.
- Offer natural food sources like flowering native plants and bird feeders.
- Avoid lawn products with harmful chemicals such as pesticides.
- Build or purchase a bat house so bats can control insects and pollinate plants on your property.
- Convert all or part of your lawn into a natural native plant habitat for local animals.
- Place yard debris in a brush pile to create a shelter for small animals like chipmunks and toads.
- Plant flowers that attract bees and put up specially-designed bee houses for them.
- Make sure your swimming pool has an escape route like a ramp for wild animals that fall in.
- Attract beneficial insects like butterflies and beetles with appropriate native plants.
- Keep cats indoors for their own safety and the safety of local wildlife.
- Watch out for nesting animals like rabbits and birds while mowing and pruning in the spring.
- Use humane methods to trap and release wildlife that gets into your home.
- Prevent deadly bird strikes by applying a few cling decals to your window panes.
Great to catch up – love the garden ideas, but as always, a wonderful blog filled with heart warming stories and helpful advice – long may it continue! 😺💕xxx
Thank you! Good to see you in the comments section! 🙂 ❤
Love this post so much. Good on you. I do my best in our garden, it brings such joy and pleasure.
Thanks so much, love to garden with all the little critters in mind!
Not at all….keep it up. Give em a home and they shall come as rhey say here.
🙂
We’re looking forward to when we can plant a batch of seeds designed for butterflies. But before then, I’m hoping for some much needed moisture.
Yes, I first learned about Xeriscape when I moved to Colorado from the east coast. (and dry skin and nosebleeds too!)
It’s a way of life when you life at a mile high. And you must like tan and brown in winter. 😆
Haha…yes! A symphony of browns!
Yay! Our yard tends to come by this naturally because we live in the woods! It’s so much fun to watch the different types of birds on the feeders, to watch the chipmunks, squirrels, and an occasional rabbit running around. And I love it when the deer come to feed! We put corn out for them. We’re never sure what time they’ll show but love it when we can watch the little troupe! There’s usually about five or six that come. My whole life I always lived in a busy city and never experienced this. It’s heavenly! 😻💕😁
That’s awesome, you’re so lucky you have a naturally animal friendly habitat and so many visitors! Here in San Diego it can be hot and dry, but at least we are lucky to have lots of pollinators living here year-round. 🙂