I’ve been absent, a lot has occurred and to make a long story short I’ve had to move. New house, new yard, new garden.

But I came out of the woods into a more urban setting with official yards and everything. I don’t know how to act. It’s a neighborhood for heavensakes! As the Gardener Formally Known as a Woodland Gardener, I am suddenly realizing how spoiled I am and getting humbled. No more is my dirt perfect, no more do I have old trees and a functional ecosystem. I am living in a place that has torn the function right out of the land. I have rock hard, over mowed, over raked packed clay and shallow rooted new growth trees making soil dry as a red desert at all times. Uggh.

But nooooo… we must garden! It is sanity after all. Let us go insane for the sake of sanity. So off I went to my favorite nursery, Kinsey Family Farm Landscape Supply. I wasn’t really there to pick up plants but the nurseryman talked me into (oh yeah, his job was tough talking me into a plant) Weeping Eastern Redbud. I’m in love with it already! So I stuffed the 6′ staked tree into my little car and off I went, home to plant, and realized, ohmygosh I can’t just stick this thing in the ground! I must amend soil! Ya got to be kidding. I have had to do a lot of work to plant a little tree, cutting out lawn, preparing soil, and generally cooking in the hot Georgia sun. Here are the lessons I have learned attempting to plant a single tree:

1. Skinny 46 year old women should not attempt to use a tiller unless they are looking to have their butts kicked across the property.

2. You must till. I’m not afraid to get out there and swing a mattock to turn dirt, but hard clay would kill any mortal.

3. You can buy soil amendments. Really! Buy the stuff! This was news to me! In bags even! It does not fall from the trees in the form of leaves like manna from the heavens when land has been cleared. I curse those who came before me and raked every freaking leaf in the place and sent it to landfills.

4. You can buy mulch! Really! IN BAGS! It also does not fall from the trees like manna from heaven…what’s with that? No longer may I walk to another spot in the yard, rake some leaves, run over it with a mulching mower and voilà! Have beautiful, healthy mulch. The stuff you can buy in bags is dyed…you can get colors…erm…why would I feed my plants dye?

5. Mulch even comes in rubber (faux?) which is just plain scary. I think that’s a plot to sell fertilizer when your plants have zero nutrition naturally. People! Don’t use that stuff! You are making your future gardening a lot more difficult, even if you think it’s so handy now. Nothing rots, nothing feeds your plants. They will look like hell in a few seasons.

6. When you leave the woods to live in a neighborhood, your world is no longer one big ‘mixed border’. When you garden in the woods, it’s really just a series of paths you plant anything you dang well please along. See a plant you like? It will fit somewhere! In a neighborhood you have to pretend to give a rat’s fanny about something called ‘curb appeal’, the fine art of caring what some stranger driving down the road thinks of your garden. Okay so I am incorporating the term ‘design’ into my world. It’s a wonderful opportunity to show native plants in an attractive, acceptable landscape and I am looking forward to the challenge.

It’s really hit home how we have tried so hard to come up with attractive, low maintenance landscapes and how we have made the job so much more difficult on ourselves. More watering, more fertilizing, more pruning. I am working a heck of a lot harder to landscape in a landscaped area than I would in an area that had been allowed to function naturally. In the home landscape we’d save work and money if we incorporated nature into it. Use leaves! Rake them into your beds and cover with a dyed mulch if you wish, but feed those trees and shrubs what they want. Plant less grass and stop sucking all the water and nutrition out of the land. Mulch, don’t spray the bedickens out of everything in your path. If you want a plant that does well, plant a native that wants to live in your garden and not off somewhere in the Himalayas. You can have a stunning low maintenance yard if you work with the land, not try to force it into something it’s not. It will rebel against you, eat your time and resources, and ultimately win.

Every spring I fall in love with my native Red Buckeye Aesculus pavia. When I am desperate for a leaf, any leaf, she comes back first with large, dramatic buds. Nothing else is showing signs of life except the fairy sized footballs on the red buckeye.

And soon, when the maples are just flowering, lovely bronze/red/olive green leaves show up overnight on the buckeye.

The new leaves have a beautiful texture and are deeply ridged. I’m in love.

Then in early spring, showy red flowers appear. They are about 10″ long and plentiful. In shade, the color is deep and stunning. The blooms are high profile and you can see them from a good distance. They just shine. ‘Pop’ and all that coveted stuff.

Aesculus pavia Red buckeye is native to the eastern United States, from Texas to Illinois, Virginia to Florida (See USDA plant profile for a map). It is a fast growing, large shrub or open small tree that reaches about 8-10 ft’ in height. Red buckeye is very easy to grow, needing shade or semi shade in moist loamy soil. Supposedly it prefers a neutral or basic pH however mine is doing just ducky in pine woods. It doesn’t get much more acid than Georgia soil. Like many native plants it’s low maintenance and with the exception of summer watering I do nothing to this plant. It requires no pruning, nor do I fertilize but it does well without. The seeds germinate easily and you will get a few baby plants but most often the nuts are eaten so quickly by wildlife that the seeds don’t stand much of a chance. It won’t be all over your property. While Aesculus pavia does not need to be a bog plant they do require water as Red buckeye will lose their leaves in midsummer without sufficient rainfall. Which brings me to the “Ehh” part.

Keep your Red buckeye in the shade. It will get leaf scorch and look Ehh. While it’s the first to show up in the spring, it’s the first to go in the fall. By late summer/ early fall this is not the best looking shrub in the yard. By August the leaves have all dropped. I wouldn’t call it a “front of the border” plant. At this time I’m thinking, “Ehh, that thing looks like rat’s behind and I’m not feeling the love.”

In a habitat garden the early spring flowers are an important food source for migrating hummingbirds, bees and early butterflies. Yes the bees can get in those tubular flowers. I’ve seen them drill tiny holes at the base to get to pollen. Oh those crafty bees. In the fall the buckeye nuts, or seed pods, are eaten by squirrels, chipmunks and other small mammals. The nuts don’t last long on mine. Don’t eat them yourself, folks, they are poisonous.

And by the end of August my red buckeye is just twigs and I’m loving on some other plant, Aesculus pavia forgotten. But when spring comes, once again she will be completely WOW! and steal the show in my habitat. She reminds me that yes, indeed, she is one of my favorites and I will always love Red buckeye. I wouldn’t be without it.

American hazelnut Corylus americana (filberts) are a valuable shrub in the habitat garden, providing food and breeding sites for backyard wildlife. American hazelnut is native to eastern North America from Maine west to Saskatchewan and North Dakota, south to eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas and south to Georgia. For details on native distribution, please see USDA Plants Profile.

The American filbert (corylus americana) can grow to 8-12′ tall with a crown spread of 10′, creating a dense privacy screen, perfect for a hedgerow and as nesting sites for birds. The nuts of the American hazelnut  have a higher nutritional value than acorns and beechnuts, making them a valuable food source for wildlife.

American hazelnut Corylus americana is an easy plant to grow. It’s drought tolerant, spreading by rhizomes into colonies to form thickets. It will do well if planted along a woodland edge or in dry, full-sun conditions and can survive most conditions except damp clay soils. Hazelnuts grow naturally as shrub form plants but may be trained as single trunk trees. Tree forming a hazelnut is common practice among farmers in order to make it easier to harvest the nuts.

Male and female flowers are separate but both are found on a single plant with the female flowers near the end of the twigs. The tiny bright red stigma female flower is almost completely enclosed by bracts. Male flowers are in the form of catkins. The flowers provide a food source for bees.

Filberts have a few requirements in order to preform well in a habitat garden. They prefer well drained, loamy soil that is a little on the acidic side. Their rhizomes roots are shallow, therefore they take up most of their moisture and nutrients in the top 3-4′ of soil. This is an important feature to note on hazelnuts when keeping them healthy long term. Nutrients in the form of leaf litter or fertilizers come from above the plant, not deep roots below.

Another important feature to note with American hazelnut Corylus americana is that they require a second planting of a different variety for cross pollination in order to produce a nut crop. You will need to plant two shrubs, preferably from different sources, in order to produce hazelnuts.

Twigs, leaves, twigs and catkins are browsed by rabbits, moose and deer while the male catkins provide winter food for wild turkey and ruffed grouse.

Interesting green sheath surrounds maturing nut as they develop and  the fall color can be coppery-red.

The edible nuts that mature in September-October and are eaten by deer, squirrels, foxes,northern bobwhite, turkey, woodpeckers, ruffed grouse, and pheasants.

When I am attempting to attract a particular bird to nest on my property I do a bit of research beforehand. Do your research if you honestly wish birds to nest in your yard. Putting up a house is not enough. They need food, water, habitat and the correct nesting materials or they will keep looking until they find such a spot. There is plenty out there on backyard bird feeding, providing water, etc but know what a species needs to nest.

To determine what a particular species needs are first visit Ebird and use their “Explore Data” feature to see if that species has been sighted in your area.

Research what the bird requires to build a nest. Habitat, nesting materials, what they eat and what month they breed. Make certain what they need to actually construct their nest is on your property – birds can be very particular about this. An American goldfinch (not a bird house dweller but a desirable nester!) will use bark bound together with spider and caterpillar webs and line the inside of the nest with plant silk from cattails, thistles or milkweed. A Great crested flycatcher who will nest in a box uses twigs, bark fibers, leaves, feathers, rope, hair and sometimes snake skin. For them to breed in your yard they must provide these things. Take stock of your natural nesting materials and supplement what isn’t naturally available. Brush your dog outside for hair, buy an inexpensive down pillow at a bargain store and use the feathers to begin a small nesting material pile in your garden. Select a protected dry spot preferably on the ground. I personally have found ground level to work the best. A plain suet basket can be a nesting material cage, birds can easily pull items from it. Be ready for a given species the month they breed in your area.

You will want a local bird guide to start with. On top of my local guide my favorite books are:

The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds – This book is not a bird ID nor picture book. It’s an encyclopedia and has a lot more than just bird species in it, but with each species it will tell you when they nest and what their nesting materials are. I believe it is out of print but don’t be afraid to buy it used.

Lives of North American Birds – Another encyclopedia type reference with details on each species. Habitat, range maps, nesting materials and nesting seasons.

For house building, there are many plans on the internet but I also like these:

The Complete Book of Birdhouse Construction for Woodworkers – This book is plans, just plans. It’s a good little reference if you know what you are doing with wood. I’ve had fairly decent results with some of their ideas. It’s very inexpensive to boot.

Birdhouses, Feeders You Can Make (Project Books) – Another book of simple plans. I’ve pulled this out a few times over they years and keep it in my library.

Building Birdhouses and Feeders (Ortho Library) – Simple plans for feeders and houses, one I’ve used frequently and kept around. Most of the designs are easy, and when it comes to birds, that’s what usually works best.

Out in my habitat it’s obvious spring is about to occur. Trees are budding, the weather is completely wonky, plants are poking up from the ground and the birds are starting to house hunt in earnest. In pre-nesting preparation, yesterday was bird house cleaning day. I realized that I have an excessive number of a lot of bird houses and each one is special to me, a reminder of who has lived there and the excitement of watching the babies go from eggs to fledglings.  After two decades, multiple designs and a good number of bird families, I have this bird house thing down. All of my boxes are plain, practical and blend well with their surroundings – which is where birds actually nest. No fancy painted houses here.

As I cleaned out each box I thought of the memory attached to it, why it was there, and the bird families who occupied it. In my new house these bird boxes have only been up for a maximum of three nesting seasons but they already mean something to me. These are a few of my memories:

I stole this bird house. Really. When I first moved in there was an older woman living next door to me. She was very quiet, I never saw her, just lights at very precise hours.  The story is that her husband had Parkinson’s and he became too much for her to handle so he was put in a nursing home. She put her house on the market in order to move closer to him but she passed away the day after she moved. The lady had been a gardener and her yard was very overgrown but I knew that she had loved it. I found this box in the woods, lying on the ground, and it broke my heart. It was on her property but after seeing it for weeks just laying there, I snuck (okay, I “sneaked”) over and grabbed it. It was destroyed and we pretty much had to rebuild it entirely to get it back together. It is a chickadee box and the only one I have with such a small floor at only 4″x4″, but a downy woodpecker nested in it last year and raised a family. That was a treat. This winter the male downy roosted inside.

This is a bluebird box and my “standard” habitat bird house. It’s size is suitable to a wide variety of cavity dwelling songbirds with a 5″x5″ floor. All of my boxes are pole mounted with baffles, not so much for the squirrels as for snakes. We have a lot of rat snakes around here (yay!) but they will climb poles and eat eggs or baby birds.

Another standard habitat box, this one with the entrance guard off. It was removed after watching a male nuthatch bash his beak against it for days until I thought he would break his face. As soon as we removed the metal plate  he didn’t want anything to do with it. Go figure. A brown headed nuthatch moved in and raised a family.

A nesting shelf which hasn’t found a permanent home yet. We had it on the side of an outbuilding but it was ignored. I have robins, eastern phoebes and mourning doves which will all nest on shelves but no takers. In fact, the robins nested on the ground in English ivy which just chapped my bottom because I despise the English ivy. It’s a necessary evil right now as it’s a major erosion control plant and it’s going to take a retaining wall to replace it. The doves, thrashers and several other birds nested in leyland cypress. This also chapped my bottom because I want the sterile cypress gone and have planted holly behind it in order to one day take the cypress out. It acts as a privacy screen but I dream of the day it’s dead. Meanwhile, being the only coverage on my property it’s hosted nesting. Uggh. Very insulting to a habitat gardener. Blows the snotty right out of me.

This is a convertible roosting box bird house. Plans for it are here: Convertible Roosting Box Bird House. It’s large enough for screech owls, flickers, flycatchers or woodpeckers but so far has not been occupied except as a winter roost which was fun. I have three of them and the others have been used but not this one. It’s set back a bit further in the woods with hopes of attracting a screech owl. Meanwhile,  the squirrels move in, the squirrels move out. Squirrels don’t tend to occupy a box for long which I have heard is due to changing a house frequently helps them to avoid parasites. Knowing that they won’t be there for long has kept me from chasing them out and they actually seem to prefer to use it on rainy days but not as a permanent residence. If they came around during screech owl breeding season, which is February – March in Georgia, I’d give them the boot without thinking twice.

This bird house is a particular favorite of mine. Plans for it are here: Build a Nuthatch Wedge Shaped Bird House Plans. It was only put up last fall on this property with hopes of aging it a bit before spring nesting so has not been used yet, however the design was highly successful for 10 years at my previous residence. It was a home for many nuthatches, white breasted and brown headed. Watching them all fledge was a joy. It’s also just a different, fun shape while still being a practical home for backyard birds.

A Peterson’s classic box. Oh the drama of a Peterson’s. They always cause a stir for prospective bird parents seeking realestate. Last spring was it’s first season and everyone checked it out. Usually the birds prefer a house that’s been up a year and aged but not this one. The chickadees, who nest first, built a nest in it. Bluebirds came along and built a nest on top of the chickadee nest, the chickadees had a fit while the bluebirds ignored them and the titmice screamed all the while that they wanted this house. Screaming titmice is nothing unusual as they scream they wanted that one about any box another bird looks at. The chickadees moved to a wren house, the titmice into a woodpecker box, then the bluebirds said “forget this” and moved into a different Peterson’s box on the property. Alright.

The other day a female red-bellied woodpecker was checking it out. Now it’s a bit small for a large woodpecker but that would be nice.

So go forth, clean out your nest boxes, put more bird houses up, plant more berries and get ready to make more memories this nesting season. Who has already nested in your yard and given you a memory?