- Author: Amy Breschini
Photo by Cindy Muther
What could feel more like a storybook than a flourishing garden which is populated by happy birds, bees and butterflies? Suppose that garden could also help reduce our home heating and cooling bills? Sound too good to be true? Well, the next workshop in the Master Gardeners’ popular “Advice to Grow By” series will provide you with ideas and projects to create your own energy efficient wildlife sanctuary. In “Conserving Energy and Providing Habitat in Your Backyard,” we will show how average San Luis Obispo County gardeners can provide food, water and shelter for local and migrating wildlife while reducing their home energy consumption.
Photo by Cindy Muther
The class will be geared to small or average size yards, and will focus on plants, many of them native, which are beneficial to wildlife, while providing opportunities to reduce home energy costs.
We will discuss “vertical layering”-planning not only the horizontal area of the yard but the vertical area as well- from the ground cover, through shrubs and small trees, to the canopies of the tallest trees. The vegetation in each layer provides shelter for different species of wildlife and should be planned accordingly to maximize shelter and food sources as well as energy saving features.
Please bring a hat, a chair and a friend and join us on Saturday, July 17th for this sixth in our series of monthly workshops. It will be held at the Garden of the Seven Sisters, our newly developed demonstration garden, at 2156 Sierra Way, SLO, between 10:00 a.m. and noon.
When each of us, one household at a time, adopts gardening practices that save us money AND help to improve environmental quality, the community is rewarded with both conserving energy and providing wildlife sanctuary. A happy ending indeed!
Watch this column for news of our ongoing workshop series, offered free to the public the 3rd Saturday of each month. We are especially excited to be planning our third annual Tomato Extravaganza in our own new garden August 21st!
Ten Tips for Landscaping for Wildlife:
1. Limit the amount of lawn 6. Provide Bird/Bat Houses
2. Increase Vertical Layering 7. Remove Invasive Exotic Plants
3. Provide Snags and Brush Piles 8. Manage Your Pets
4. Provide Water 9. Reduce Pesticide Use
5. Plant Native Vegetation 10. Expand the Scale of Habitat
Got a Gardening Question?
Contact the University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners: at 781-5939 from 1 to 5 p.m. on Monday and Thursday; at 473-7190 from 10 a.m. to noon in Arroyo Grande; and at 434-4105 from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesday in Templeton. Visit the UCCE Master Gardeners Web site at groups.ucanr.org/slomg/ or e-mail mgsanluisobispo@ucdavis.edu.
FOR ADDITIONAL HANDOUTS, PLEASE CLICK ON THE UNDERLINED ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
plant list for wildlife
Wildlife websites
Tree Recommendations