for southern regions

If you have any space at all, plant thickets, thickets and more thickets. I am telling you, a good thicket or backyard hedgerow is the best way to attract wildlife to a personal habitat and due to fragmentation, loss of habitat, what wildlife needs is a place to live.

Wildlife habitat fragmentation is the separating of parcels of land which support wildlife and native plants into smaller, unconnected parcels. This separating of land can occur through home development, business parks or human use building. Separating of pieces of land into fragments results in leaving behind only small patches for wildlife may use to live, eat and breed. Fragmentation eliminates habitat for those species requiring large unbroken blocks of land such as Georgia’s red-cocked woodpecker.

The small land patches also become inaccessible for wildlife to move from one patch to the other due to roads they can not cross or blocks of buildings they can not pass through. Often these separated, isolated blocks of land become sterile as they do not provide adequate food or shelter for many of species that do attempt to live in them, as well as creates more habitat edges for predators to hunt.

Edges

An example of increased predation due to increased habitat edges through fragmentation would be the decline of warblers who nest near the ground. Since the patches warblers have available to nest in are smaller, there is an increased amount of woodland edge in their nesting spots. Predators such as blue jays, crows, grackles, domestic house cats and parasitic cowbirds hunt woodland edges, therefore, with an increased amount of woodland edge, the warbler has more of a chance of being hunted and less of a chance of successfully breeding and surviving.

Within these small patches left for wildlife to live in, plants cannot disperse pollen or seeds to maintain healthy, genetically diverse populations which wildlife uses for food and cover and animal species can not maintain healthy populations.

Wildlife Corridors

Wildlife corridors or green corridors are are habitat spaces which create physical connections between disconnected fragments of plant and animal habitat. These corridors allow wildlife to move from one patch of habitat to another and results in an exchange of individual species between local smaller populations. This lowers inbreeding within small habitat parcels, increasing a species population size as well as allows native plants to pollinate and seed.

Corridor projects can be as large as miles of stretches of land connecting state parks, a tunnel under a highway which allows animals to cross under, or creating a hedgerow in your own backyard.

Hedgerows – Something You Can Build in Your Backyard

A hedgerow can be built along fence lines, drainage ditch or created as living privacy fences between homes. Hedgerows are not the same as ornamental suburban hedges but instead are a mixture of native shrubs, small trees, evergreens and ground covers. They are not pruned into specific shapes but allowed to blend one plant into the other. Limbs which begin to grow beyond the border of the hedge can be woven back into the hedgerow instead of cut off, creating a thicker planting for birds to fly in and out, but prevent the passage of larger animals. Hedgerows muffle sounds, create windbreaks and attract many beneficial species of wildlife. Instead of the common over pruned hedge, consider building a hedgerow of native plants and berries to create a mini-ecosystem in your backyard. A hedgerow needs key ingredients that an animal needs to survive: food, shelter and nesting sites.

Ideally, a hedgerow should be 13-16′ wide and a mixed planting of a variety of native berry bearing shrubs for food. It should include evergreen shrubs or trees for cover. Smaller urban plots can as well build hedgerows, even a narrow or small space will help wildlife and the more of your neighbors that participate, the more chances wildlife has to find spots to live or pass through.
Hedgerows do not have to be wild and unruly, but can be quite stunning. A mix of berry and shelter producing hollies, viburnums, fothergilla with it’s stunning fall colors, sassafras thickets and beautyberry to name a few can create a beautiful hedge of flowers and color while at the same time create an area beneficial to birds, butterflies and other wildlife.

Hedgerow Resources

Online

• Fletcher Wildlife Garden – Creating a hedgerow basics.
• GardenWeb Forums – Ask questions when choosing plants for a hedgerow. Make sure it is a native, non-invasive species. Gardenweb has a Georgia gardener’s forum, native plant and wildlife forums, along with several others that can help. The people here have a lot of knowledge!

Books

• Gardening With Native Plants of the South – Sally Wasowski, Andy Wasowski
• Natural Landscaping: Designing with Native Plant Communities – John Diekelmann
• Birdscaping Your Garden: A Practical Guide To Backyard Birds And The Plants That Attract Them – George Adams

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