- Adding Shelter to Your Butterfly Garden
Give butterflies a safe place to rest and feed, and they’re more likely to stay and raise a family. But don’t stop there! Observe the life stages of these delicate creatures and protect them to keep your garden aflutter – even before new wings take flight.
- Bird-Watching (From Behind the Blinds)
You’ve done a lot of work to attract garden birds and other fascinating wildlife. Take the time to sit back and watch your feathered friends enjoy it! Learn a few garden-bird watching tips, including the easy steps to constructing a simple bird blind for the back yard.
- Bob & Betty Bluebird, Sittin’ in Your Tree (S-I-N-G-I-N-G)
Add flashes of brilliant blue to your outdoor living space – and an enchanting spring song! With the right food and shelter, your garden can be a year-round home to a family of bluebirds. Here’s how to put out the welcome mat for these special feathered friends.
- Butterflies and the Host With the Most
Want to attract butterflies to your garden but aren’t sure what to plant? Check out this handy chart listing common and scientific names for butterflies, along with the plants on which they lay their eggs and their larvae feed.
- Butterfly Garden Basics
Butterflies add a whole new level of life, beauty and color to your garden. Once you understand these incredible insects’ taste for color, lighting and scent, you’ll be able to lure them in for seasons of enjoyment.
- Create a Five-Star Butterfly Restaurant
Attracting butterflies to your yard is fun and satisfying – although not always easy. But with the right food on the menu, plenty of seating and the perfect ambiance, your garden can become the hottest butterfly restaurant in town!
- Caring for Your Wildlife Garden, Naturally!
If you want to bring in the birds, bees and butterflies, then you’ve got to care for your plants naturally so you don’t harm the wildlife. Don’t know where to start? Follow these simple guidelines to butterfly garden care and help your wing-filled garden take flight.
- Open Your Own “Caterpillar Hotel”
“Caterpillar hotels” are the perfect way to invite more butterflies into your garden. By selecting the right host plants, the beautiful winged creatures will lay their eggs in your yard and begin an ongoing cycle of life right before your eyes. (No reservations needed.)
- Deck the Boughs With Holiday Bird Feeders
Let your holiday decorating go to the birds! Hanging colorful bird feeders and homemade bird-feeding decorations on an outdoor tree is a great way to bring life and sounds to an otherwise silent winter garden.
- Feeding the Birds
From bug eaters to seed lovers, different birds have different feeding habits. Understanding the food preferences of your feathered friends (and how they eat) can help with feeding birds in the garden. Here are some examples, along with steps to making two easy bird feeders for winter feasting.
- This Garden’s for the Birds (and Bees and Butterflies)
Hummingbirds, butterflies and bees are responsible for many food crops and keep life growing! Unfortunately, these amazing creatures are losing their natural habitats. Create a space for them in your back yard and bring environmentally sound beauty to your garden. (If you grow it, they will come!)
- Gardens to Sustain, Gardens to Shelter
Offering shelter and a constant supply of food and water is a crucial step in turning your garden habitat into a haven that draws countless winged beauties – and encourages them to stay. Learn some wildlife garden basics when it comes to gardening for birds and butterflies.
- Giving Your Container Garden Wings
Hummingbirds, butterflies and bees are responsible for many food crops and keep life growing! Unfortunately, these amazing creatures are losing their natural habitats. Create a space for them in your back yard and bring environmentally sound beauty to your garden. (If you grow it, they will come!)
- Grow a Birdhouse for a Song(bird)
If your wildlife garden brings in the songbirds, why not grow them a home? Gourd birdhouses have been around for centuries, and with good reason: They’re decorative, affordable, and easy to grow and make. Learn the simple way to plant gourds and make a birdhouse from your harvest.
- Growing a Nursery (for Butterfly Babies)
A butterfly garden is more than just a bunch of pretty flowers – it means including host plants for these delicate creatures to raise their families on. Learn the importance of including host plants in your garden, as well as how to plant your own “butterfly nursery.”
- Growing Chinese Abelia
Chinese abelia is a butterfly magnet. It’s widely adapted, easy to grow and suitable for almost any garden. In late summer the Chinese abelia produces a profusion of blooms attracting these flying flowers from throughout the neighborhood.
- Humming Attractions
Attracting hummingbirds to the garden is a fascinating way to bring sound, movement, life and color to outdoor living spaces. The rapid wing beats and brilliant, iridescent plumage of these unique creatures makes them a joy to watch. Learn more about hummingbirds – then make your garden all aflutter!
- Attracting Hummingbirds With Annuals
Attract hummingbirds to your garden with the colorful, specially shaped flowers of long-blooming annuals.
- Inviting Butterflies to Your Garden
Attracting butterflies to your yard takes more than just adding a few garden plants they like – but that’s a great start. Learn what types of flowers these winged beauties prefer, as well as what other habitat requirements they have.
- Picking Wildlife Flowers
Growing flowers that attract wildlife is an easy way to entice winged guests to your garden. But which flowers work best? Here’s a list of various blooming plants known to attract birds and butterflies, including helpful links to the Learn2Grow Plant Database so you can learn more about them.
- Singing the Praises of Songbirds
Bring movement, beauty and life to the garden – attract songbirds. Due to the varied bird species and differences in their diet, your wildlife landscape should offer a wide selection of plants to entice and satisfy every songster. Learn more about songbirds and how to meet their needs.
- Toad-ally Get Rid of Garden Pests
Garden pests got you down? Try inviting toads to your yard. These hungry amphibians can eat 100 bugs per night! So invite these ugly-but-saintly creatures to your yard by following a few simple, toad-friendly tips.
- Welcoming Wildlife to Your Natural Garden
What’s a natural garden without the natural inhabitants? Attracting wildlife to your landscape is as easy as adding a few simple accessories. Here are some easy and affordable tips to welcoming a host of nature’s creatures in your garden – from feathered friends to pest-eating toads.
- Wet and Wildlife in the Garden: Attracting Birds With Water
Attracting birds with water is easy. From simple birdbath to elaborate pond, any water feature can bring nature’s creatures right to your landscape. Learn how water plays an important factor in gardening for wildlife, as well as some tips on bringing this precious resource into your yard.
- Window Watching: Spying on Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds are amazing, fast-moving creatures that are easy to scare away. Learn how to apply a window treatment for bird-watching from the inside of your home so you can watch hummingbirds without disturbing them from their nectar gathering – and enjoy your garden as it takes flight!
- Winter is for the Birds
Don’t cut off those dead-looking flowers just yet! The seed heads of these spent blooms are a natural food source for our feathered friends.
- Your Garden: Humming(bird) With Excitement
Hummingbirds add another level of beauty and movement to the landscape. Learn how to attract hummingbirds to your garden with the right “hummingbird plants” and feeders – and where to place them to best enjoy these amazing creatures.