Try to imagine a
garden
where the only thing that was alive was a plant. I certainly can't,
though the folks from Ortho might be able to. One of the purposes
for my garden is attracting wildlife. I could hardly call it a garden without all of the
wildlife. The California
Quail in my berry
patch make so many great noises all day and at night in the hedge along
my drive as I walk under their roost. When my plumcot/pluot is in full bloom the air is alive with the
buzz of the bees. A fountain without fish, why bother? The
scrub jay that plants all of those acorns all year and regularly crashes
into the bird feeder scattering sparrows and seed in every direction would
be sorely missed. The bats that live in the inner workings of my
pool table add a real thrill to the first break and keep the biting bugs
at bay as well. I love to stroke the spiders on their backs.
They start to trampoline to make themselves look ferocious. We
even got a racer, a gopher snake, and a king snake visiting for
awhile. I hope they took a couple of gophers with them. There
is a pair of red shouldered hawks that live in the trees adjacent to our
house. They come down to rest on the swing set on a regular basis to make sure that none of
those chickens have come out to play. The chickens sure make a
racket when this happens. The chickens are safe even if they are not so
sure.
I think that birds, bats, and bugs should all be
part of what goes on in my garden. They all add to what
entertains me. At night I can hear as many as 6 Great Horned Owls
calling one another, unless it is the morning of the Audubon Christmas Bird
Count and on that day they are almost always mute. Bats fly about at night
eating mosquitoes, and in the spring swallows do this all day too.
Tree frogs spend their days in the bromeliads and hop from fountains up
into the oak trees. I counted more than 50 going up one evening at
dusk and then more than a few falling back down only to climb again. Spiders and Mantis'
eating bees and all sorts of other bugs. And then there are the
nesting Titmice, robins, and woodpeckers. We had a family of violet
green swallows that showed up several years ago and took up residence in a
bird house I had made. The following year they came back with their
brood and filled 2 more houses.
I have worked hard at
attracting wildlife to my garden. I have built bat houses,
scads of birdhouses, mason bee houses and put in water features. It
is important to provide housing, cover, and water. Some will come to
food but most will come regardless. A diverse group of flowering
plants will provide seed all year long and many will provide nectar while
they are flowering. Red berries and tubular flowers, especially red
ones are very attractive to birds. Butterflies are nectar feeders in
their adult stage as well. Providing plants with a large supply of
nectar producing flowers brings both the butterflies and the
hummingbirds. I can't overemphasize the importance of plant
diversity in order to attract wildlife. Migratory birds will note
California native plants as well as from south of the border as familiar
food and cover sources.
Varied plant heights is important
for attracting wildlife too, meadow to shrubs to trees. Providing space over and under
for the birds to fly allows them to avoid being nervous. They love
to go from one dense plant to another. Rosa mutabilis is probably
the most heavily trafficked plant in our yard. Between the dense
foliage and the thorns, I know I am not going to go in to bother those
birds. I thought it a wonderful thing when I tied the whips of
my apple arch together and a couple of birds promptly flew through the
newly formed arch.
I have a scraggly old willow
tree. Ours is a love hate relationship. The tree is truly
dangerous on a windy day. It drops large branches several times a year.
Because of this erratic natural pruning it is rather misshapen. And the kids have learned
not to venture too close on those windy days. It grows branches that are
20 feet long in a single season, such that it reaches out and musses my
roses if I don't keep up. The leaves are bumpy with red marks
because of psyllid damage. The cotton and leaves mess up the pond
and deck. But this rangy tree is great for attracting
wildlife, the birds that come because of that tree make up for
all of these shortcomings and more. Grosbeaks, woodpeckers,
flickers, and sapsuckers, orioles, flycatchers, kinglets, vireos, sparrows and
finches. This is the landing point for most all that approaches our
feeders. Willows were once very common up and down the
riverbanks. Because of all of the flood control measures of dubious quality
there are hardly any of these riparian trees left. People don't
usually keep them in their yards because of the aforementioned
ailments. Fortunately we have enough space to allow the tree its
zone of destruction and can enjoy the resulting stream of
wildlife.
Squirrels and chipmunks that won't
come to earth because of the dogs will sit in the trees and scold those
dogs from a safe distance.
We have had monarchs,
swallowtails, checkers, blues, mourning cloaks,
gulf fritillary's and
more. At times it seems that there are more butterflies than
flowers. Look at our list of plants for a butterfly
garden
