Our mission: Garden by garden, landscape by landscape, we hope to grow a network of habitat for songbirds and pollinators that will bring these hard-working species back to health, save water for our streams and rivers, and restore the joy of seeing nature every day to people across the Rocky Mountain region and beyond. Join Audubon Rockies, Plant Select® and High Country Gardens in promoting wildscaping. Be a habitat hero.

Cultivate Wildness

“How can I attract wildlife to my yard?” asked a reader recently. Our answer: “Cultivate wildness.”

By wildness, we don't mean leaving your lawn un-moved; we mean creating a wildscape, a landscape that provides habitat for wildlife.

Diversity promotes habitat

Biologists talk about diversity in terms of species diversity, the number and kind of species in a particular area, and structural diversity, the form or structure of the community. A tidy yard with an expansive mowed lawn, neatly raked flowerbeds, and large shade trees provides neither kind of diversity.

An area allowed to grow a variety of plants in natural way with some plants tall, some short, some sprawling, some twining, and some upright, is a boon to wildlife.

Cultivate species diversity by replacing some lawn with a colorful and diverse mix of native or regionally adapted shrubs, perennial flowers, and grasses. Pick plants that will provide different heights and shapes, assorted kinds of foliage; flowers in different colors, shapes, and blooming times, varying kinds of fruits and seeds, and will also add interest year round.

Designing Wild

A “wild” garden doesn’t have to look sloppy: Arrange the plants in a way their differing forms meld well. Cluster plants for maximum impact: landscape designers often use groups of three or five plants of the same species. Contrast can be pleasing.

Magenta poppy mallows, for example, open in mid-morning, and close at night, while bright-yellow Missouri evening primrose does the opposite, opening its blossoms in the evening and staying open until the hot sunlight of the day wilts them.

Plant Variety--Seasonal and Shape

Plant a variety of flowers blooming from spring to fall to appeal to different kinds of pollinators—native bees, butterflies, beetles, moths, and hummingbirds. Poppy mallows attract bees and flower flies; night-flying moths pollinate evening primroses.

Add structural diversity: some tall plants, some mid-sized and shorter plants, some ground-hugging plants, with lots of horizontal and vertical overlap to allow wildlife to move from one area to another.

Shrubs and native grasses provide wonderful structural diversity, as well as diversity of shape, texture, color, and food and shelter for wildlife.

Resist Tidiness

Resist the tidiness impulses: leave organic litter in place to mulch the soil, don’t cut back dead stalks until spring, and avoid using pesticides.

Mulch shades the soil, keeping it cool on hot summer days and warmer in winter. It holds moisture and decomposes to release nutrients that help plants grow.

Dead leaves may camouflage the cocoons of swallowtail butterflies; a dense shrub or tree provides daytime shade and protection from cold nights for the tiny nests of hummingbirds.

Cultivating untidiness takes practice, but it’s worth the effort. As Ken Druse points out in his book, The Natural Habitat Garden, if every one of American’s estimated 38 million gardeners created a wildscape on just one-tenth of an acre, that would mean 3.8 million acres of wildlife habitat.

That would nurture a lot of butterflies and songbirds.