Newsletter Articles
Attracting Critters to Your Yard
There are many wonderful opportunities to help wildlife around your area. While not everyone is thrilled when deer eat their favorite flowers or the plants in the garden, there are still many smaller critters that need our help. Read on to discover some easy ways to help bring the wild creatures to your yard, and how doing so can be educational for kids and adults.
A Bee Bath
Well, bees don’t bathe, but they do need water, especially in the warm climate of Southern California. A simple way to attract bees to your yard is to provide water for them. More bees, mean more pollination. That also means better blooms for your flowering plants and more vegetables in your garden. Here’s How:
1. Pick up a ceramic pot water reservoir from one of our nurseries. The size should be at least 1-foot in diameter.
2. Fill it with garden rocks, also available at our nurseries. The stones should be kind of flat rather than round.
3. Carefully line the reservoir with the garden rocks. You want to keep the stones close together, but still leave a little space between them.
4. Place the reservoir in a shady location in your yard.
5. Fill the reservoir with water so that it just covers the top of the rocks.
6. Be sure to check the water often and refill it as needed.
It is just that easy to help the bees around your yard. You can also help them by planting a bee garden.
Build a Lizard Habitat
Lizards are amazing little creatures that love the sunny weather of Southern California. Most Western Fence lizards carry an organism that helps destroy the vector that causes Lyme’s Disease. When a tick bites a lizard that has this organism, the organism kills the Lyme’s Disease vector in a tick, making the bite less dangerous. For that reason, and many others, we recommend lizard habitats. Here’s how to build one.
1. Choose a place that gets plenty of sunshine.
2. Outline a small space with river rocks, bricks, or even potted plants.
3. Fill the area with quality potting soil, as you will plant flowering plants in it.
4. Choose some of your favorite plants, such as succulents. You will also want a few larger rocks, flower pots, and maybe an old board.
5. Arrange the larger stones, flower pots – empty, and the old board. The board may be anything that you can use to create a slanted element in the habitat. Lizards like to crawl up things, and the board gives them that opportunity.
5. Add in your flowering plants around the props. Choose low-growing plants such as strawberries or succulents.
6. Water in the plants and wait. As soon as the plants get settled, the lizards will find the spot.
Tip: A little Sandy area can help lizards find a perfect spot to lay eggs.
This project is excellent for kids with adult supervision. It also gives kids something to look forward too, as the lizards begin to arrive.
Hum, Hum, Humming Birds
Attracting hummingbirds to your yard is relatively straightforward. Just plant a brightly colored flowering shrub, and they usually show up before you are done. We carry many flowering plants that attract hummingbirds. Typically, these are brightly colored trumpet vines. What you will need is as follows:
1. Climbing vines or shrubs that have a lot of colors. Stop by and shop our massive collection of trumpet vines and talk with our garden experts about hummingbird plants.
2. Pick up a trellis to support the vine, or let it crawl along a fence or gate. Trellises make it easy to sculpt and contain vining plants.
3. Opt for a quality potting soil mix for containers or a sandy compost product, such as BlackGold Compost for in-ground planting.
That is all that you need to attract hummingbirds to your yard. Of course, you can put up a few feeders too and add in more beautiful flowers. Either way, the hummingbirds will find your yard and visit often.
At Green Thumb Nursery, we thrive on helping people create beautiful yards that attract beautiful creatures. If you have a garden project in mind, give us a call or stop by one of our five Southern California locations and chat with our garden experts. You can also call us on the phone, shop online, or send us an email with your questions. Please keep in mind that our inventory changes daily. If you want a particular plant or product, give us a call and let us check our inventory for you. We also can order unique products too.
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