In the last blog, "'Tis a wild, wild, wild garden we need to create", I started with my theme of tackling wildlife gardening from the ground up. Or rather, the lawn.....and how we got the balance between grass and garden plants all WRONG.

It starts with a new house. Developers tend to have favorite designs. First, a street tree or two with a perfectly circular mulched area at the base. Then, borders under the windows, generally with a cherry tree placed too close to the house and a series of unidentifiable shrubs that are always green but do absolutely nothing else (no flowers, no autumnal glory, no colorful berries)

Of course, after a time we realize their mistakes. The cherry tree is chopped down. The anonymous green shrubs are either tolerated or replaced by an ‘evergreen of color' like a blue Juniper or golden Chamaecyparis.  And we buy pansies for the winter and spring and annuals for the summer. Every year.

And heft spadefuls of mulch in-between everything.

You don't have to be a master landscape gardener on HGTV to wonder if there mightn't be a better way of gardening.

How about cultivating something that's a little more beautiful....that's a little less work....and help the environment too! And I do mean help!  The yard is one of the areas where householders can make a deeply positive impact.

The essence of the approach is -

 - Less lawn, more flower beds (for all the reasons I discussed last time)

•  - Planting perennials. These come back each year and expand on their own. This saves money you would otherwise spend on annuals...and water...and weeding.
• Native plants are better for wildlife and hardly ever need any watering

 - You will spend more time enjoying your yard - or doing something else just as worthwhile, like visiting a neighbor or telephoning a friend - and less time maintaining its whims.

Shrinking the lawn

So how would you do this? First, a warning - some web sites and books extol the virtues of reducing lawn size without setting realistic goals. You don't want to exhaust yourself digging up all the lawn in one summer. Start gently...and you will, slowly but surely, turn the garden into a less-polluting, more beautiful place.

Attack, first the edges of the lawn, and those parts of the lawn that have always been too dry or shaded to grow well, or too sloping to easily mow. Dig the lawn up (you can smother it as an alternative - with a thick covering of newspapers and mulch) and then step in with the perennials...

Perennials

We tend to buy a lot of annuals (Petunias, Impatiens, etc) in the United States, and although these are great to fill in gaps, and for container planting, you will get much better value for money and a much more carefree garden if you choose to plant perennials. They come back year after year (I guess that you had worked that out) and they spread - so you can give some away to friends and neighbors after a few years, as well as have a steadily decreasing amount of flowerbed to weed. And trust me - bee balm, black-eyed susans, speedwell, day lilies, Hibiscus, spurges, Pyrethrum daisies, hollyhocks....they are all so easy to grow (fewer pests, less watering) and so beautiful. And a lot of them are magnets for butterflies and helpful insects!

....and this fall, I have derived so much amusement watching the goldfinches eating the seeds from the black-eyed susans. Don't forget to let them seed - in other words, try not to be too tidy!

Native plants

What's the fuss over these? Well, they evolved in the place you live. This means that they can take anything the weather can throw at them - and so are very unlikely to need replacing because of frosts or drought. They will usually only ever need watering until they are established...  and then never again (unless they are swamp natives, which of course you should only plant in boggy areas). They are also well-positioned to help the wildlife of your area - which might want to eat their leaves but also will want to visit their flowers (butterflies) and eat their berries (birds!)

Because of the amount of intensive agriculture, our back yards are effectively one of the best ways to maintain healthy wildlife populations - this applies to birds and bees and butterflies and frogs and everything else.

So - in your zeal to plant perennials and focus on native plants - look for plants that are beautiful and bee/butterfly-friendly......

And then there are plants with berries for birds to feast on through the cold winter.......

And what to plant? There is a marvelous web site to help you - http://www.plantnative.org/

You can specify where you live and it will give you recommended plants for your area - ones that grow there and are best for wildlife.

There are also book recommendations, and of course best of all, lists of places to buy the plants.

Other ways to attract wildlife

Birdfeeders! One of the most fun activities for anyone even vaguely interested in birds is Project Feederwatch. Simply sign up at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology site (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/) and you can join tens of thousands of other people across North America who count the numbers of different species of birds visiting their bird feeders at wintertime. This is not only hugely enjoyable - this is the largest example of ‘citizen science' anywhere. The information is analyzed and has been used to track population trends affected by diseases such as West Nile Virus as well as the slow-but-sure changes that are associated with climate change - like birds appearing at birdfeeders much further north than previously.

And in fact - urban myths about choking nestlings notwithstanding - you can actually feed the birds year-round, and given the paucity of natural food in our overchemicalized environment, this is no bad thing.

Of course you can boost the numbers of birds coming to your garden by growing the right plants - perennials with seeds like black-eyed susans and berry-bearing shrubs, for instance, like hollies and Viburnum - and also any native plants, because they tend to attract the maximum numbers of insects for them to eat (the best of all would be oaks and maples as they are great for insects and great for nesting places for birds too)

Attracting insects....Now, if we'd put down bees or butterflies you wouldn't mind so much. After all, we all know we need bees to pollinate our crops and we all love butterflies....but other bugs? Ugh! But - apart from mosquitoes, say - we must learn to respect all the countless other insects and spiders of God's ecosystem. Many are beautiful, most are harmless, and some do wondrous things against the pests that otherwise would make you reach for the pesticide.

As Jared Diamond said in his book Collapse, elimination of lots of "lousy little creatures" regularly causes big harmful consequences for us humans...."just as would the random removal of the "lousy little rivets" holding together an airplane".