The month of May is Garden for Wildlife month. Due to factors such as loss of habitat, pesticides exposure, and climate change, much of wildlife is being challenged today. There are many ways home gardeners can directly help birds, bees, butterflies, and other local wildlife. The saying “If you build it, they will come” applies not only to the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams,” but also to attracting wildlife to your garden.

Plants

If you have the space, plant an oak tree! While it will take several years for the tree to mature, few plants provide more benefits to nature than an oak tree. One Valley oak tree can provide food, water, and shelter to approximately 350 vertebrate species and over 250 species of insects and arachnids.

Plant a variety of native plants which are the foundation of local food webs. Wildlife and plants evolved together in ways that were beneficial to both, plus they are adapted to local soils and weather. Native plants provide food, shelter, and places to care for their young. Native plants also tend to be water-wise, needing little watering once established.

Choose plants that bloom at different times of the year, to ensure something is always blooming during the different seasons thus providing nectar sources year-round.  Include some plants which produce berries to provide food sources attractive to birds and insects.

Create multi-layered planting. Have some canopy trees of different heights, weave in some tall, medium, and small plants, along with some groundcovers. Even a small garden can have plants of different heights to attract and shelter different types of wildlife. Arbors and trellises are also ways to grow vines, providing more variety in your garden.

Lawns lack variety, thus reducing your lawn space and replacing it with native plants will increase the diversity in your garden. Decreasing the frequency of mowing permits grasses to grow taller, allowing flowers to grow and bloom which would attract bees and butterflies. You can also sprinkle some daisy and clover seeds into your lawn to provide forage plants and flowers for many beneficial insects.

Water

Wildlife needs water. The water source(s) can be a small dish, a bird bath, a rain garden, or pond. Water in bird baths needs to be shallow since birds will not use a bath where the water is deeper than their legs. Be sure to clean and change the water frequently to prevent mosquitoes.

Ponds with aquatic-loving plants can encourage amphibians such as salamanders or toads, or wetland insects such as dragonflies, to visit and set up their homes.

Butterflies engage in behavior called “puddling,” where they stop in muddy puddles for water and nutrients. You can recreate this by filling a terra cotta saucer with soil and pebbles, sink it into the ground and keep it moist. Again, change the water regularly.

Plants and rocks around the water source(s) provide shelter, camouflage, and spots for creatures like butterflies, lizards, or turtles who like to sun themselves near water.

Housing for Bees

Most bees are solitary in nature with 70% being ground nesters like mining bees. Cavity-nesters such as mason bees comprise 30% of bees. These live in twigs, abandoned beetle holes, and other tree cavities. The social honeybees and bumble bees who live in hives or colonies make up less than 1% of all bees. Native bees are up to 200 times more efficient pollinators than honeybees. You can attract native bees to your garden by providing bare patches of dirt in out-of-the way sections and/or supply bee housing with hollow reeds or cardboard tubes in a sheltered spot that receives morning sun.

Leave the Leaves

Leaving leaves as they drop from your trees and bushes provides food and shelter for a variety of living creatures including worms, beetles, millipedes, larvae of some butterflies and moths, toads, frogs and more. These in turn attract birds, mammals, and amphibians that rely on the smaller organisms as a food source.

Chemicals

Reduce or eliminate use of pesticides and fertilizers which can be harmful to wildlife (including beneficial insects) and contaminate water resources. Instead use earth-friendly solutions such as garden mulch to discourage weeds and adding nutrients to the soil. UC Integrated Pest Management provides a source of research-based less-toxic solutions for garden pest management.

One Step at a Time

Changing your garden into a wildlife haven will likely be a step-by-step process over a period of time. Building a garden attractive to wildlife will bring you the enjoyment of watching them and the knowledge you are helping wildlife thrive.

Resources listed provide information for ways to you to build a garden attractive to wildlife.

• Butterflies in Your Garden: https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/345791.pdf
• Sustainable Landscaping: https://ucanr.edu/sites/stancountymg/Sustainable_Landscaping/
• Trees in Your Garden:  https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/341553.pdf
• Pollinator-Friendly Native Plants Lists: https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/pollinator-friendly-plant-lists
• UC IPM Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/
• The Bee Gardener: The Cavities You Want to Have: https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=12785
• How to Make and Use Bee Houses for Cavity Nesting Bees: https://beegarden.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/How-to-build-and-use-bee-blocks.pdf

 

Denise Godbout-Avant has been a Stanislaus County Master Gardener since 2020.

Amid all the COVID-19 restrictions, the UCCE Master Gardeners of Stanislaus County have been hard at work bringing our ‘Learning Landscape' to life at the Stanislaus County Agricultural Center, located at 3800 Cornucopia Way in Modesto. This project is underway thanks to in-kind donations from Modesto Junior College, Grover Landscaping, and Hunter Industries. It's also thanks to community donations and the hard work of our Master Gardener volunteers.

The goal is to create a place to invite the community to visit and observe different types of gardens, learn from hands-on classes and workshops, or to simply come out to enjoy a beautiful space. We also envision school children coming to see examples of pollinator plants, vegetable gardens, and fruit trees, too.

The Learning Landscape can also be a place where Master Gardeners are trained. In May, a small group of us gathered for the first outdoor class by former Horticulture Advisor Ed Perry. He demonstrated how to properly stake a tree. We learned a lot more seeing a demonstration than we did learning from a PowerPoint presentation! This class was a success and will be followed by others in the future. 

We hope you will consider helping us expand our demonstration garden project. Big Dig Day is Friday, June 4 but you can join us Thursday night at midnight to begin donating. All donations will benefit our project. Click this link to donate to our campaign: https://ucanr.edu/sites/BigDig/ Navigate to Stanislaus County, and then choose "Master Gardener Fund" from the drop down menu.

Or, you can send a check made out to "UC Regents" to 3800 Cornucopia Way, Ste A, Modesto, CA 95358.

 

On June 4, 2021 we are hosting #BigDigDay, 24-hours to show support to our program and help us raise funds for our Learning Landscape. Join us and #giveback to support the UC Master Gardener Program.

Our goal is to raise $3,000 towards our future Learning Landscape theme gardens. Our first two themes are:

• Sensory Garden
• Pollinator Garden

About the Gardens

The Sensory and Pollinator Gardens will be located at the Ag Center on 3800 Cornucopia Way near the Stanislaus Building and serve as an outdoor classroom where we will offer future classes. It will also be a place for visitors to observe plants and their care in the landscape. The plants will have signs so you can snap a photo and remember what to get on your next trip to a nursery or garden center. The gardens will be maintained by Master Gardener volunteers.

The Sensory Garden

Our group of volunteers who designed this garden see it as a space for plants that soothe the senses and help you relax. Plants you can see, touch, smell, or even hear.

The Pollinator Garden

The volunteers designing this garden want to create a paradise for bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles, and other pollinators.

We need your help!

Help us raise the funds to create these gardens by contributing! Follow us on social media for updates and stay tuned for another blog post with giving information. Please help by telling your friends, family, and anyone you know who may want to donate to make these gardens happen. 

The #BigDigDay site is counting down the time until June 4 when you can give credit card donations. If you'd like to donate with a check, please make it out to UC Regents and send it to the Master Gardener Program, 3800 Cornucopia Way Ste A, Modesto 95358.

If you're looking for an outdoor activity, take a stroll through the La Loma Native Garden at 1805 Encina Avenue in Modesto. This two-acre area is ablaze with color right now, with many blooming wildflowers of different hues.

It's a joy to walk along the tree lined path and discover a variety of native plant species you might not know about. This garden recreates natural environments that are dwindling.

The garden was started as a community effort with support from the City of Modesto to improve a neglected strip of land and provide a usable space for the neighborhood. Much of the assets in the garden came from donations and neighborhood efforts. Modesto Subaru also came on board as a supporter to help with needed improvements. 

The garden has sections of interest, such as a children's play area, where a little lending library can be found and activities such as tic tac toe and hopscotch. Rustic wood benches are scattered along the path for rest and view stops. The city provided 32 valley oak trees which form the backbone of the garden along the path.

During the spring months there is much color to enjoy. Look for white poppies, yarrow, daisies, and mock orange in the white garden area.

The blue garden hosts blue eyed grass, ceanothus, Cleveland sage and other bluish blooms. The striking dark blue blossoms on the ceanothus are a must see and attract large numbers of bees, both native bees and honeybees.

Another developing color area is the yellow garden, which has sunflowers, wallflower, and other asters. 

You may find your own favorite plant or color spot as you walk along the trail and explore. Many area residents come back weekly to see which plants are newly blooming. The garden changes constantly,

The increase in bird and insect visitations is a reminder of what communities can do to help support our natural environment.

If you see some plants that inspire you, consider planting these species in your home landscape to provide a food source for our native pollinators, which are in desperate need of habitat and nutrition that these plants can provide. 

Enjoy your walk!

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You can learn more about the La Loma Neighborhood Garden by visiting their website at https://sites.google.com/prod/view/lalomanativegarden

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Rhonda Allen is a Master Gardener trainee. She is set to graduate and become a Master Gardener this June!