On Becoming a Wild Gardener

IF YOU ENJOY watching birds, squirrels, and other wildlife in your garden … if you are trying to garden in an environmentally friendly way … if you believe that we humans should try to co-exist with the other species that inhabit this land with us … you're going to love being involved (if you aren’t already) in a growing national movement toward what I call wild gardening--gardening that is wildlife-friendly and inspired by nature.

Many people are attracted to wild gardening because they enjoy watching birds and other animals and want to attract them to their properties. This is an easy and very rewarding way to get into wild gardening, so I'm going to be focusing on it for a while. Here 's a little bit of an introduction:

Wildlife-friendly gardening is a way of taking care of our land – whether it’s a 100-acre spread or just one window box -- so that we help birds and other animals instead of driving them away. Wildlife-friendly gardeners do this by providing food, shelter, and clean water for animals, while minimizing practices that harm wildlife. In return, we enjoy the beauty, song, and entertaining antics of countless creatures; know that we are being environmentally responsible in our gardening practices; and bring a little “wildness” into our gardens and our lives!

Wildlife-friendly gardening need not be expensive or time-consuming. In fact, many people find that maintaining a wildlife-friendly garden is much less expensive and time consuming than gardening the old-fashioned way (especially if you formerly were trying to maintain a large lawn).

Wildlife-friendly gardening is not out-of-the-mainstream. Across the country, thousands of people are engaged in this practice.

Finally, your wildlife-friendly garden doesn’t have to conform to any one gardening style. It’s possible to design a wildlife-friendly garden in any number of styles -- from “natural” to “neat and tidy” and everything in between.

In the next weeks and months, we'll be exploring what all this means in practice. Please join me again soon!

No comments: