Why Certify?

My husband had a hard time understanding why I wanted my yard certified by the National Wildlife Federation, he was worried that someone would come out and inspect things, and just really is not a plant person.

I decided this was something I wanted to do for the planet, just one small step. Now I am encouraging others to get their yard certified also. Then benefits aren't just for the wildlife, but you benefit so much also.

The first thing you need to do to certify your yard is to take a look at what you already have and decide if your yard meets the 4 basic requirements and if you don't, what do you need to add to your yard. You don't need a huge piece of property either, birds and butterflies will come to the smallest yard and sometimes they are the ones that need help the most .

First off is food, are there any plants that provide berries in your yard, many of the native plants in your yard already provide that, so check for those in your yard. Flowers provide nectar and pollen for the butterflies, and how can you go wrong with more flowers in your yard. Even a pot of flowers can provide food for a hungry butterfly. Next do you have host plants for your native butterflies, those really bring more butterflies to your yard since the females search those out when searching for a place to leave eggs. Of course there is always the bird feeders, and those attract lots of birds.

Next is water, that can be an existing pond, you can put in a small pond, or even a birdbath. It is that simple, you just need to clean and fill the birdbath on a daily basis. One note on birdbaths, forget the fancy resin ones, they look nice, but don't seem to be made to actually go outside in the sun and hold water, they tend to start leaking and cracking. The best one I have found, just used an old saucer from a pot, this one happens to be concrete, but a glazed one would work fine as long as it holds water.

Next is a place to raise young, that can be a large tree, if you have local birds that use houses, put up a few, a pond is a place for frogs to raise young, the host plants for the butterflies is a place to raise young.

The last requirement is cover. Do you have large bushes where a bird can hide from a predator? You can build a brush pile for reptiles to hide under, and this doesn't have to be ugly, you can plant a vine over it, then it also supplies food for butterflies and birds if there are seeds on it.

You can go the National Wildlife Federation and download their application and see exactly what you need to do to certify your yard. Also if you just can't do your yard, maybe you can encourage someone else to do their yard and help them out. Every bit helps and you will enjoy knowing you did something to help the planet and wildlife.

If you do decide after reading this to get your yard certified, please let me know, I have set a goal of trying to get others to have their yard certified.

The Birds

No, this isn't about Alfred Hitchcock's movie, this is about the birds that are visiting my yard. So far they haven't attacked anyone, but it has been pretty close on the days that my son isn't filling the bird feeders quick enough. We are mostly getting ring necked dove, they come in huge flocks, but we also get blue jays, a few grackles, and my favorite, the cardinals. How can you not like a bird with such beautiful coloring. What I am finding really cool about the cardinals is that they seem more inclined to actually go to the native plants and try some of them, and not just hang at the feeders. Today they were eating the beautyberry seeds and they will go and actually eat the sunflower seeds straight from the plant. I am really hoping that as the birds start migrating, we get even more varieties in our backyard.

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Ian's essay

Ian my 12 year old son wrote this report to finish off a lesson on ecology and he wanted me to put it on here for him

Today too many people spray their yard for insects and over fertilize their yard. All the chemicals that go in to lawns are extremely bad for wildlife and it's not just for animals, It's bad for people too. Many of the chemicals that go into lawns are cacinogens, meaning they can cause cancer. What people should do is plant native plants. Native plants need less water than exotics. They also provide habitat for many animals, to make a good habitat you need food, water, shelter and places to raise young.

Ian

age 12

Swallowtail butterfly

Today I made a really cool discovery on the wild lime that I bought a few weeks ago at the native plant show. The wild lime doesn't produce fruit for humans, but supposedly the birds do eat the .25 inch fruits it does produce

The wild lime is also a host plant for the swallowtail butterfly. A host plant is a plant that a particular butterfly looks for to lay her eggs on and when they hatch this is what the caterpillar will feed on until it is ready to change. They are very important in the butterfly garden since many caterpillars only eat certain things. For example the monarch looks for milkweed, the gulf fritillary lays her eggs on passion vine

Now the swallowtail caterpillar is interesting, it basically looks like crap, bird crap to be exact. This is a defense mechanism, what bird wants to eat something that looks likes poop. Right now I have 4 of these guys on my wild lime. I am so excited about this. I hope these grow to adulthood and come back and continue the cycle in my backyard. Oh and the bird is one of the ibis that shows up now and again and eats the bugs in my yard, I am sure they are enjoying my chemical free yard, and helping me by eating the bugs and leaving behind some natural fertilizer.

The pond

The pond was the real start of the whole thing. My son wanted a natural pond that would attract frogs and dragonfly larvae to it.

First my son researched and we decided on a rigid plastic form since we have 3 dogs and if a dog fell in a pond made with just plastic liner they might rip it. Since one has fallen in it twice, that was a good idea. One weekend my husband and my son dug a hole and put it in the ground. They filled it, and we put some pea gravel in it the next day. First mistake, we didn't clean it enough, it was loaded with sand. We had to take it back out of the ground to completely clean. Of course this meant draining it, Luckily only 125 gallons and we had a pump.

After filling it again, and using well washed gravel, we needed to think of plants. At first my son didn't want a pump, he later learned we needed one in it to keep it clear, and that it didn't disturb the wildlife he hoped to attract.

Our trip to the local water garden store, we came away shocked. Water lilies cost fifty dollars and unless we wanted to spend a few thousand dollars, they weren't really interested in helping us.

The next stop was a local pet store where we found some aquarium plants for a few dollars. We later found some at Lowe's, even a water lily for ten dollars. The best place we found was a mail order place called Tricksters, they have great stuff, good prices and quick shipping. We buy a biological clearing product from them that doesn't harm the snails that hitched a ride into the pond on our first plants.

I surprised Ian one day with three dollars worth of feeder guppies, despite a really cold spell the day after they went into the pond most survived. We now have a breeding population and any mosquito larvae that happens to hatch is history.

After 5 months we are still learning how to mantain it, we have had two episodes of algae but now it seems to be staying clear, the plants are growing like crazy, and we are seeing lots of frogs around it. One day we even saw a huge heron, but it didn't come back since our guppies were not worth eating.

Here are a few pictures of the frogs and eggs in the pond.

The Butterfly Garden

I planted the butterfly garden to meet one of the requirements of the National Wildlife Backyard Habitat program. It provides food for the butterflies, it also is proving a lot of habitat for the lizards who hide in it, and who hunt some of the other bugs that hang out there.

The main plants in it are the porter weeds, at least one kind is native to Florida, and they thrive without a lot of water once established. Another one is the sunshine mimosa which is a native sensitive plant which closes when you touch it. It is so pretty with it's pink blossoms that look like poms poms. We also have a native coreopsis, or tick seed plant. That is new, but I think it is going to do great.

Besides the natives, we have pentas, a turnera, I love that one, but it only blooms early in the morning. The bees just love that one, they roll in it. They also love the anise hyssop. I have to admit, I love this plant, the leaves make great tea.

We also have several other areas that are being slowly planted as money allows. We have passion vines that are attracting gulf frittilary . I am having a hard time though explaining to people that I want the caterpillars to eat the leaves, and no I don't want to know a good spray. That seems to be the hardest thing for a lot of people to understand.

Beginnings

Hi, I live in Florida and I just had my yard certified by the National Wildlife Federation. I am pretty proud of that accomplishment, but most of the credit goes to my 12 year old son. Back in March he decided he really wanted to build pond for his science project, and we started researching the net. Most places told up how to keep the frogs and the wildlife out of the pond, but that is not what he wanted for his pond. While researching we found information on ponds and wildlife at the National Wildlife site and realized that we could certify our yard with some work. We started on a butterfly garden by putting in beds with flowers and as many native plants as we could find. We put in some bird feeders, we already had a few large trees. My son is a reptile lover so we had to build a brush pile for our anoles and black racers to hide. Step by step we made our yard a lot more friendly to wildlife, including putting a few bird baths in the yard. We started seeing more butterflies, we had host plants and started getting caterpillars on the plants and watched them turn into butterflies. More on the garden later