By Michele Byers
Garden buffet
for birds, bees
and butterflies
The noise and pollution from lawnmowers and weed-whackers may be an icon of summer in New Jersey, but not for Hazel England and Emile DeVito.
They don’t have much grass to mow because they have little traditional lawn.
Instead of spending money on herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, gasoline, water and fertilizer to grow a carpet of cool-season grass in a hot, humid climate, Hazel and Emile — professional biologists for the Great Swamp Watershed Association and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, respectively — opted for a personal nature sanctuary filled with songbirds, butterflies and bees and other wildlife.
About 15 years ago, they began replacing lawn with native trees, shrubs and wildflowers — the types of vegetation found in New Jersey before European settlers arrived.
Why? To save money, have fun gardening and teach their children to be comfortable outside, learning about wildlife and nature in their own yard.
“Typically, suburban landscapes are a biological desert,” Emile explains. “They have nothing to offer to wildlife.”
Though ornamental landscaping plants may be pretty and colorful, he said, many are “exotics” with little or no value to the insects that are the basis of the food chain.
It took a few years, but Hazel and Emile eventually created a diverse mini-ecosystem filled with native plants and organic soil. Their yard is now habitat for hundreds of soil microorganisms, arthropods, including caterpillars and pollinators, which, in turn, provide food for birds, spiders, dragonflies and even hawks and owls.
Native trees and shrubs provide berries that fuel bird migration and seeds and dry fruits that help resident birds survive during winter.
“Our yard is now an island of native forest and meadow habitat in a sea of suburban lawns, roads and rooftops,” he says. “Our lawn is reduced to pathways and a few small patches. It is amazing how many species have colonized our habitat.”
Hazel and Emile aren’t the only ones focusing on native plants instead of a manicured lawn. Throughout the Garden State, nature lovers are putting more thought into creating environments to help our birds, butterflies and bees thrive.
And some species need all the help they can get! Monarch butterflies, for example, are declining because the native plants their caterpillars feed on — especially milkweed —have disappeared from many landscapes.
Some other butterflies and moths are just as particular; they’ve evolved to require specific native plants for food.
You can help wildlife by going native, too!
If you live in a rural area, consider converting part of your yard to meadow. The first step is easy —just stop mowing. Plants whose seeds already are in the ground will emerge.
You can make your meadow even better by adding seeds or plugs from native plants like Joe Pye weed, New England aster, milkweed and black-eyed Susan. Just be sure to learn about invasive plants and get rid of them before they take root.
In addition to being a haven for wildlife, your meadow will need mowing only once a year, in late fall or late winter, and will be drought tolerant.
If you live in a suburban or urban area, creating a native garden is a more deliberate process.
“You can’t just remove the plastic slipcovers from your yard and stop mowing. You won’t get many native plants; you’ll get mostly European lawn weeds,” Emile says. “You will have to remove patches of lawn and add native plants.”
To attract birds, try trees and shrubs like dogwood, sweetbay magnolia, serviceberry, spicebush, winterberry, high-bush blueberry, blackhaw and arrowwood viburnum; all produce nutritious fruits. To grab the attention of hummingbirds, plant bright red cardinal flowers.
For butterflies, you’ll need plants that provide leaves for the larvae (caterpillars) as well as nectar for the adult butterflies.
Michele Byers is executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. For more information, contact her at info@njconservation.org or visit NJCF’s website at www.njconservation.org.
