Creating a Backyard Habitat Using Native Plants
By: Emma Rauschert
This month, I wanted to write about reducing your manicured lawn space and turning it into something more beautiful: a native habitat for birds, butterflies, and insects. Illinois has historically been known as the prairie state, but where are the prairies? We mowed them down. Prairie now makes up only .01% of land in Illinois. We traded tall, beautiful prairie grass and wildflowers for a short, green, monoculture yard. We remove wildlife habitats to make our lawns and ditches more attractive or tidier. It's time to bring back native plants into our landscape and create more habitats for wildlife in our backyards. We don't have to go back to massively tall prairie grass everywhere. There are many ways to help the wildlife around us and increase their habitats, whether by adding native flowers to your landscaping, planting a downy serviceberry bush or a white oak tree, or reducing your green lawn space by adding a wildflower patch.
Most native pollinator populations are declining due to a loss of habitat. One way we can support our native pollinators and other native insects is by choosing native plants in our landscapes. Native plants are, by definition, plants that have evolved in an ecological area for thousands of years. An example of a native plant to Illinois would be the common milkweed that hosts our beloved Monarch butterfly or the downy serviceberry bush, which is a host for over 90 species of butterflies and moths. Non-native plants exist where they don't naturally live and may have ended up here by humans moving them. An example of a typical non-native plant in our region is Japanese honeysuckle, native to East Asia but not America. Unfortunately, many of our landscaping plants are non-native to our area and do not support our native wildlife. These non-native plants also have the potential to become invasive and wreck ecosystems. You may be thinking, I have many non-native plants with pollinators visiting them. It is true, but the pollinators visiting many of your flowers may be non-native insects, such as the western honey bee. The more native biodiversity you have in your yard, the more diversity of native insects you will have. To incorporate more native plants in your landscape, a great time of year to sow some native seeds is now!
If you already have a well-established landscape, consider dedicating a new space in your yard to a wildflower pollinator habitat or creating a new flower bed with only native plants. Before starting your new habitat project, make sure the location is sunny and able to support plant growth. If grasses are growing, you can grow native plants there. Most wildflowers require full sun, over 6 hours of direct sunlight daily. Numerous businesses sell wildflower seeds. Check out the Wildflower Only Pollinator Seed Packet from Mason State Tree Nursery, which consists entirely of native local plants. The American Meadows website has some great seed mixes as well. I have also attended native seed shares, where you can get many native seeds for free! Recommendations vary for how much seed you need for a given area, but anywhere you buy seed should have seed coverage rates. Many local plant nurseries also sell potted native wildflowers, grasses, bushes, and trees. If you want to grow more native plants in your landscape, just be sure they are native to your area. I recommend planting potted native plants in the spring.
I removed grass in my yard a couple of years ago to create a native habitat area. I started in November by tilling up a 30x30-foot plot of grass. You want to remove all the existing vegetation before planting seeds. There are many methods of doing this, such as tilling, solarization, smothering, using sod cutters, or using herbicides. Remove as much existing vegetation as possible so the new plants can grow without much competition.
At the end of November, I scattered a mix of annuals and native perennials right before a rainfall. I used a seed broadcaster, which I recommend getting as it spreads the seeds evenly. It is recommended to lightly rake over the seeds or roll them to lightly compact them into the soil. You can step on the seeds with your shoes to press them into the soil, or for larger areas, you can use a lawn roller tool. Do not cover the seeds; most wildflower seeds need light to germinate. The seeds lay dormant over the winter and germinate in the spring.
In the spring, your wildflower seeds will begin to germinate and grow. You may also encounter some grasses growing if you haven't gotten rid of them completely. I sprayed my wildflower patch with clethodim in the following early summer. Clethodim is an herbicide that only kills grass. I bought a gallon but only used a couple of ounces as you need very little to get the job done. Be sure to read the safety instructions on the herbicide before using it. I added two ounces of clethodim to a two-gallon sprayer tank, then one ounce of laundry detergent, and then filled the sprayer with water, leaving some space at the top for the pump. Shake it up, and you're good to go. I just spot-sprayed my whole patch where there was still grass growing. As with any herbicide, spray before any blooms appear on your plants to eliminate danger to pollinators. Also, be sure not to spray if there is rain in the forecast or it is a windy day.
Your wildflower patch may not do much in the first year. Perennial wildflowers spend much of their energy in the first year growing foliage and roots but not so much flowers. Your wildflower patch will not reach its full potential until after a couple of years. When your wildflower patch is established, enjoy watching all of the biodiversity feeding off of your wild area. You have just created a habitat for numerous species of wildlife. Birds, butterflies, and other insects will be buzzing around. For long-term care, you may want to mow off the wildflower patch at a high deck level to kill off unwanted tree saplings that may have sprouted. This should only be necessary once a year, if at all. If you have weeds in your area, try digging them out before they go to seed. Hopefully, if you prioritize your seedbed preparation, weeds will be scarce. Try not to clean up your habitat at the end of the year. Many insects will find your habitat a perfect winter resting place.
Maintaining a lawn is just as much, if not more, work as maintaining a wildflower patch. And once you establish a wildflower patch, there isn't much work after that. After looking at the price of a new riding lawnmower to keep my 5 acres of yard a monoculture of grass, I decided it was time to spend the money instead on a lawn roller and seeds. My yard was not benefitting me the way I wanted it to. Mowed grass lawns don't provide a home for insects, food for butterflies, or nesting areas for birds. These are the creatures I want to invite into my yard, but I realized my yard is not a habitat for these creatures; it is a desert. My goal in converting my yard into a habitat is to see more species of birds, more native bees and bumblebees, butterflies, and dragonflies (and dragonflies eat a ton of mosquitos). A book I just recently read and loved was 'Nature's Best Hope' by Doug Tallamy. If you would like to learn more about the importance of backyard habitats, look no further than this short, easy read. We would be fools to think we can exist on Earth without nature. And the thing is, we need all of nature. We can't just pick and choose which nature we like and want to keep. Everything is connected. I just can't help but think about how much more biodiversity we could invite into our yards if we change them. We share a world with the most beautiful creatures, and I am so thankful for that. But to continue seeing our beloved wildlife, we must provide resources for them to survive and thrive. Can your yard be more than just for you? Grow native plants in your yard, put up a bird feeder, don't mow your lawn so short, plant a tree, and your backyard will become a crucial landing ground for migrating birds, an endangered bumblebee or a monarch butterfly.