Native Plant Wildlife Gardening

Create a Wildlife Refuge

This is a personal website of a southern gardener who tries to share space with native wildlife. I am located in Georgia so most of the information here is directed to thatregion, but many of the plants can be used around the country. Please check your own zones before planting anything.

I believe in creating an environment in my own backyard which is bird and wildlife friendly – after all I moved into their home and destroyed their environment, not the other way around. Anyone who has attempted to garden for wildlife will tell you that while it’s a simple task, finding the plants can be daunting. Local nurseries often don’t carry natives. Recently I was in three larger chain nurseries and it was all the same – I kept seeing plants for sale which are listed as category one invasive species. What’s with that?

What’s with that is the customers aren’t buying or asking for natives, so I am simply documenting my experiences in hopes of encouraging people to take the extra step and try to plant native, plant wildlife friendly.

I decided since I am a regular homeowner with zero education in any horticultural field that I represented the average person who might want to make their backyard wildlife friendly.  We have a single acre of land and this blog is about my effort to take my one acre and co-exist with nature. I live in a neighborhood, I have an HOA, I need reality based solutions for my goals and to work within my small society. My goals are very achievable.

My first 1 1/2 has been spent clearing out invasive plants. I was over run with Japanese honeysuckle, Chinese privet, overgrown woods and even natives like smilax and muscadine so heavily in the canopy that it was pulling over trees and created a wall that you could not see through. There was no air flow. It smothered and killed several trees as well. What I have left is a small woodland space in a bit of shock. For the first time in years it has sun but there is nothing growing on the ground level, the trees are misshapen and will take a few years to start growing lower limbs and a healthy form. My oak limbs start at about 40′ up, the pine area was so crowded with saplings you couldn’t walk through it and it smelled of sour rot. I have no mid level or floor to my woods. I have tall scraggly oaks and pines, a canopy and nothing else. Clearing out all of the invasive plants has destroyed wildlife coverage so I need to replace what I removed with native understory that will heal my little forest. I am at the beginning.