Gardens for Nature

Habitat Garden Ideas

Leave some dead or dying wood...

This old American Beech tree snag (stump) is a striking focal point at the edge of our pasture. Dead and dying wood is anything but lifeless, because it provides food and housing for many creatures higher up the food chain, including owls, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, bats and butterflies.

One of the benefits of natural habitat gardening is that there are always flowers enough to share - vases brimming with blooms are pure joy in late summer.

Globe Thistle (Echinops ritro) is a great plant for New England gardens. Its striking blue flowers attract butterflies and pollinators, and Goldfinches love picking at the seeds later in the year. Globe Thistle is easy to grow in a well-drained area with full sun.

This tree trunk is not diseased! The lichen growing on it is a prehistoric plant growing in damp conditions. It does not harm the tree, and like a weathered face, it conveys a sense of character and stability. Tiny organisms and insects live in lichens, and birds such as Nuthatches and Chickadees will creep up and down this tree, dining from the insects housed in its lichen colonies. Hummingbirds also use lichen to camouflage

the outside of their nests.

If you plant it, they will come...

A Monarch butterfly sipping sweet nectar (a high-carb food source for many flying creatures) on a Verbena bonariensis flower. Butterflies drink nectar using a straw-like proboscis which they dip into the flower.

Above: Our vegetated stream buffer. Planting shrubs and other plants on the edge of streams and ponds prevents erosion and acts as a natural buffer to help keep the water clean. It also provides safe habitat for turtles, whose populations are at great risk in Massachusetts due to road mortality.

This grouping of Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and Korean Mint (Agastache) provides a smorgasbord for birds, butterflies and beneficial insects. Planting in groups like this makes it easier for wildlife to find your garden, and encourages ecosystems to form.

Want to attract hummingbirds to your yard? Plant the native vine Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). Hummingbirds, with their long bills, have evolved alongside this plant to find the nectar prize hidden deep inside these tubular flowers.