To create a Backyard Wildlife Habitat:
To attract wildlife, your backyard garden must provide four main things – food, water, cover & places to raise young. How you manage your garden or landscape can also have an effect on the health of the soil, air, water, and habitat for native wildlife – as well as the human community. Sustainable gardening practices include mulching, composting, eliminating chemical pesticides and fertilizers, removing invasive plants, and keeping your cat indoors.

FOOD YEAR-ROUND
Natural vegetation provides acorns, nuts, berries, fruits, buds, catkins, pollen and nectar for birds, mammals, and insects. Follow these planting guidelines:

• Grow trees bearing nuts and fruits throughout the year.
• Alternate low and high shrub borders that produce berries and fruits. Leave openings in shrubs for wildlife paths and fly-ways.
• Install an arbor or fence for flowering and fruiting vines.
• Plant perennial and annual flowers to provide nectar for butterflies and hummingbirds.
• Plant butterfly host plants to feed caterpillars.
• Supplemental feeding for birds can be provided year-round with feeders. Fill feeders (various heights at least 50 feet apart) with foods such as sunflower, niger, proso millet, and cracked corn. Birds also like suet (beef fat) and peanut butter mixed with seeds in a mesh onion bag hung 9 feet above ground. In the summer, be sure to buy suet that is labeled to withstand high temperatures without spoiling.

WATER OF LIFE
Like humans, wildlife needs water to survive. Your backyard habitat should have many water sources - especially in droughts and hard freezes.

• A shallow container on the ground will enable birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians to drink and bathe.
• Elevated, pedestal birdbaths are decorative and easy to clean. Use a pump to drip water into the birdbath. Moving water entices birds.
• Upland homeowners should install heaters in birdbaths to prevent freezing.
• Build a small pond from pre-molded fiberglass or thick, flexible PVC liners. You can also trickle water into a natural puddle in a low area on your property.
• Place water sources near natural cover to protect wildlife from predators.

COVER
Your wildlife habitat should provide a variety of cover where animals can hide from weather and predators. Each animal has different requirements for cover. Below are some suggestions:

• Evergreen trees and shrubs are year-round refuges.
• Maintain densely branched, deciduous shrubs and vines for summer cover.
• Construct piles of brush, logs, or stone.
• Don’t rake fallen leaves – this litter provides valuable ground cover.
• Create a “mini-meadow”. Allow a strip or patch of grass to grow tall in unused corners of your lot.
• Water provides homes and escape for amphibians, reptiles, and insects.

PLACES TO RAISE YOUNG
Witnessing animal courtship and arrival of new animal families is a most rewarding aspect of your Backyard Wildlife Habitatä garden. With ingenuity, you can enhance opportunities for nesting:

• Preserve hollow trees for animals such as birds, opossum, and raccoons (secure them for safety).

  

• Install nest boxes for Carolina wrens, bluebirds, chickadees, purple martins, woodpeckers, and bats (your natural mosquito control system).

• Your native flower garden provides a natural nursery for caterpillars.

• Rock, log, and mulch piles are nesting areas for rabbits, shrews, butterflies, salamanders, and snakes.

To Get Certified:
It’s easy! Certify your own yard today! Even businesses, libraries, places of worship, public offices, and neighborhood parks can be certified as Backyard Wildlife Habitats!

There are a few different options to get certified. You can apply online, or download an application to mail in – access both of these options here.

You can also contact the SCWF office and we can mail you an application, and more information if needed. Call (803) 256-0670 or send an E-mail message by clicking here.

Beyond Your Backyard:
Once you get your own backyard certified, consider creating wildlife habitat gardens at other places in the community. Schoolyard Habitats provide not only a welcoming place for wildlife, but also an outdoor living laboratory for the students to use in every subject. The creation and maintenance of a garden requires mathematical problem solving. Science lessons come to life when the students experience the natural processes first-hand. A beautiful, thriving garden and the wildlife that live there provide endless inspiration for art and writing projects.

Industries all over the state have been giving back to nature and the community through participation in the Wildlife And Industry Together (W.A.I.T.) program. Corporate landowners are beginning to consider the needs of wildlife when making their land management decisions. W.A.I.T. provides many benefits to corporate participants, including enhanced environmental awareness of employees, improved reputation as a responsible environmental steward, and new partnerships with community groups including schools, civic organizations, and conservation organizations.

For More Information:
Further details about the SCWF’s habitat education programs, including a list of SC native plants that are valuable to wildlife, can be found here.

Become a member of SCWF- Click HERE to join!

(Story and image provided by the SC Wildlife Federation.)

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