Wildscaping Tips / Creating Habitat

Robust habitat will include leaf litter, mulch piles, dead wood, stones, and/ or rocks and caves depending on the ecoregion and habitat.

Since we cannot post links in this group, you can search youtube, pollinators, and McCoshum to pull up some of the presentations where I discuss making robust habitat.

In short, for disturbed areas and urban lots, soils need to be re-diversified. Excavating areas about 12 inches wide and 18inches deep and filling with sandy clay will help pollinators, pits of natural mulch will help toads, lizards, and insects have overwintering places. Piles of sand or mulch help turtles select nesting sites. Dead wood, like large logs, or log borders help create habitat for young beetles, nesting native bees, and pupating moths and butterflies. Solid stone shelters and burrow like structures in shady areas or under 18 inches of soils are important for lizards, box turtles, toads, and many other species to escape the heat or overwinter. Adding water resources like a dish (both on the ground or raised up a few feet) will help wildlife stay hydrated.

Most pollinators get water from nectar or other plant fluids. However, clean sources of water can help honeybee hives stay cool. “Mud puddles” provide important minerals for male butterflies to produce sperm; a manmade version is a shallow dish filled half with compost and half with sand and kept moist. Some pollinating flies need moist depressions for their larval stages. These larvae are usually predators to aphids and other soft-bodied pests.

70% of native bees are ground-nesting, so keeping some bare soil supports them.

Human-made structures can also support nesting, e.g. bee hotels, although those need to be cleaned every year or they can give bees diseases. Boulders allow for basking in the mornings. Groundcovers, fallen leaves, and winter perennials provide important protection for overwintering pollinators and larval/pupal stages.

A log can function as a bee hotel. If there are some holes drilled into it, even better; some bees don’t make their own holes.
A hole filled with wood chips, or twigs and branches, offers a winter home for toads, bees, and other insects.
Burrows of various sizes attract creatures that don’t dig their own burrows, like toads, box turtles, or bumblebees.
A dry silty area for birds to take dust baths in
A bird bath or water feature for birds to drink and wash themselves. Migrating birds will be attracted to water features that they can hear, like “bubblers.”
Bird houses can be bought or made with different kinds of birds in mind!
A small area with rich soil that stays wet; butterflies will use it to “puddle” in aka drink nutrients.
A small area of fine sand and another of native dirt, with scattered rocks or pebbles on top, to create a haven for specific bees that overwinter in such areas.
A crevice garden offers habitats to lots of different insects and small reptiles.
A small pond can be built to attract dragonflies or frogs.
Changes in slope can offer habitat for animals that need little hills to burrow into.
Evergreen bushes or brush piles give rabbits places to hide in.
Change harsh lighting to red-toned lighting and/or put it on motion sensors
Make sure there are holes in your property boundary for creatures to pass through