How to Create a Wildlife-Friendly Backyard

With gardening season upon us, I’m happy to share with you some wonderful information on how to create a wildlife-friendly backyard. I recently wrote about natural pest remedies for the garden, and these graphics below have some amazing information about beneficial insects and how they can help your garden. There is also some great info on soil, mulching and bats. Yes, bats! These creatures are so vital to our eco-system. We’ll definitely be building a bathhouse this year. Check out these awesome visuals for some great information and link back to the original site for even more.

Today’s environmental news is often alarming, especially the warnings that biodiversity, a term used to describe the immense variety of life on Earth, is under siege. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warns nearly one third of known species are threatened with extinction, including 41 percent of amphibians, 26 percent of mammals, and 13 percent of birds.

But there’s good news: We can create healthier, more diverse ecosystems right in our own backyards. Urbanization in the United States, with its associated skyscrapers, traffic, asphalt, noise, and pollution, is one of the leading causes of species endangerment. Urban sprawl is contributing to the collapse of honey bee populations and the dramatic decline in Monarch butterfly colonies.

The Biodiversity in Urban Gardens (BUG) research project, a large-scale, eight-year British study, indicates what we plant in our yards and gardens has a significant effect on the biodiversity of a city. By designing outdoor spaces to attract and accommodate birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles, and other small mammals, gardeners create safe corridors for wildlife and protect endangered species.

A gardener can take a number of steps to make over a typical yard into a healthy, diverse ecosystem, and the transformation often begins with a change in mindset.