Plant Layers

Wildlife need shelter from bad weather and hiding places from predators. Cover takes many forms: Trees, dense shrubs, tall grasses, rock and brush piles, hollow logs, a stack of firewood. The more choices you offer, the more inviting your yard will be.

The vegetative structure checklist:

• Native grasses provide cover from predators and winter insulation.
• Include plants of differing heights and foliage.
• Include a combination of mostly deciduous trees, shrubs, and understory plants.
• Large trees, dead or alive, provide wildlife with vantage points.

Messy is Best

Overgrown grassy reeds, dried flower stalks, and shrubby fruit-filled branches provide food, cover, and protection in the fall and winter for birds.

Best ways to encourage a messy garden:

• Leave your leaves on the ground.
• Allow dried flower heads to stay standing.
• Let grass grow tall and seed.
• Build a brush pile with fallen branches.
• Bare earth patches benefit dust-bathing birds.
• Don’t use chemicals.
• Leave snags (standing dead trees) in place.
• Delay garden clean-up until spring, after several 50 degree F days

At Least Two

Birds need at least two places to find shelter from weather and predators:

• Wooded area
• Bramble patch
• Ground cover
• Rock pile or wall.
• Cave
• Roosting box (not for rearing of young but for multiple cavity-nesting birds to shelter at once)
• Evergreens
• Brush or log pile
• Dead trees, standing or fallen
• Meadow or prairie
• Dense shrubs/thicket
• Water garden or pond