Food for Nurturing Nature - Plants

A wildlife garden offers three essentials to creatures: water, food and shelter. The more natural these items are, the better for your wildlife and environment. An essential ingredient of a wildlife garden is... plants!

Follow up:

Specifically, choose native plants that provide nuts, fruits, berries, nectar, pollen, buds and foliage for all types of critters, from insects to birds to mammals. Site your wildlife plants away from high-traffic areas and domestic pets but close enough to your house that you can enjoy gazing at all the activity through your windows.

Group the plants according to their water and sunlight needs, and leave space for them to mature. While trees and shrubs
are still small, fill the gaps with native perennial flowers, which you can easily move later if needed. Leave dead flowerheads on the plants throughout winter as a source of seeds for birds and mammals.

Request native plants from your local nursery or order them online;
Forest Farm Nursery in Oregon offers many species native to our
North Carolina piedmont area. Do not remove native plants from the wild, however; they are less likely to thrive once transplanted, and stealing plants from the wild robs the local wildlife of their essential resources.