by Sheri Fresonke Harper

Created on: February 21, 2009

Wildlife-friendly accessories for your garden serve two functions, they add to attractiveness of your garden and they support the environment by providing natural aids to animals that use your garden as habitat for feeding and nesting. Water can be in short supply at times in the year and by providing a natural and self-supporting oasis, wildlife will be encouraged to nest and visit your gardens. Nesting can be supported in a number of ways including providing materials for nesting and supporting the enhanced diet of the wildlife. By supporting wildlife with wildlife-friendly garden accessories rather than enabling wildlife, you will ensure that the long term health of the environment will continue.

Bee Nesting Posts

Bee nesting posts are wildlife-friendly accessories best described as sticks drilled with holes. Bee nesting posts provide a place for native pollinators to overwinter in your environment. These are equivalent to snags and other rotted wood that may be natural to an area but instead provide an attractive decoration in your garden. Place them near a source of water.

Bat Houses

In areas with native bat populations, bat houses can provide an attractive and wildlife-friendly home for bats. Bats eat small insects including mosquitoes, thus reducing your need for pesticides to control them. Place a bat house, best described as a shaded roof with a post to roost on, in a position that receives morning sun, well away from your home.

Water Dishes & Ponds

A water dish best described as a hollow in a piece of wood, concrete, stone that can provide a source of natural water from rainfall for wildlife that is wildlife-friendly. Ponds can be wildlife-friendly but unless the source of water is natural and the depth deep, they will often accumulate algae, promote the growth of mosquitoes, be difficult to maintain, and may leave wildlife dependent on the water stranded. Plan well if you add a pond to your yard.

Bird Houses

Bird houses are wildlife-friendly accessories that can be attractive additions to your garden. Placed on poles, they can add height to your garden and a trellis for climbing plants. Birdhouses replace natural places used for nesting and should mimic the native environment.

Suet Holders

Suet holders are a fun way to help wildlife get the essential fats they need during nesting and food during winter storms. Beware creating a population of wildlife dependent on food you provide and seek to only supplement the diet.

Nesting Material Holders

Birds and other animals love to have downy materials such as lint from your dryer or natural fiber strings and feathers to use in their nests. Using a suet or other holder to provide this material is wildlife-friendly and can be a decorative addition to your garden.

Window Decals & Roof Soffit Mesh

If you have a wildlife-friendly garden, you might want to add decals to your windows to protect birds from inadvertent collisions. Also, cover any vents in your roof and soffit with mesh to protect your home from an invasion of your favorite wildlife guests.

Bird & Squirrel Feeders

Bird and squirrel feeders can be wildlife-friendly accessories for your garden and supplement the diet of local communities. Beware creating a population that is unable to support itself from the environment if you should ever leave. Make sure any bird feeders are safe from invasion by rodents; our favorite cure is to hang the feeders from a post covered by stovepipe placed in a spot without any overhanging branches.

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