Hi Everyone! Welcome back to this week’s blog! I thought I would share a few fun experiences and couple of things we did to promote natural areas for bees, birds, hummingbirds and butterflies!

First, I wanted to share a quote, “If you build it, they will come.” from the movie- Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner.

I can definitely say without a doubt that this quote is true! We are reaping the rewards of creating 2 great things in our yard!

The first thing we created was a Pollinator Garden! A few years ago, we started a garden that is in our front yard, and it is dedicated to my dad. My dad was a great gardener, and he taught me many things! It started out to be very small and boy has it grown!

I wanted a garden to attract bees, hummingbirds and butterflies, so I started researching which plants are the best to attract them. The following plants are what we have as of today in the garden: 2 butterfly bushes, purple cone flowers, beebalm, black-eyed Susan’s, rosemary, spearmint, peppermint, honeysuckle, geraniums, marigolds, and day lillies. I placed small bee cups in the garden, so they won’t drown getting drinks of water. These are small ceramic flowers that hold about an ounce of water, for bees and other things to protect them. I learned about these the hard way, after I placed a large container water in the garden and lost several bees. We also, do not use any pesticides that would harm the wildlife. Now, every day in the garden we have Monarch butterflies, swallowtails, and many different types of bees.

The second thing we had built was a water feature in our backyard! It is a small pump driven waterfall that goes into a small pond. It is so relaxing listening to the falling water. I was clueless how to take care of this. But we have learned as we go. We found that mosquitoes are drawn to ponds and will lay their larvae. One day, I noticed some wiggly things in the water and at first, I was excited. I thought maybe a dragonfly laid eggs, because of the number of dragonflies we have in the yard. But, NOPE, no such luck! I looked it up and found out that they were mosquitoes! DARN IT!!!!!!! So again, I looked up what we could do without using any harmful chemicals and found out that we need to use a natural bacterium called- Bacillus Thuringiensis. This is not harmful to humans or wildlife. They are sold online and in Nurseries.

So, I bought it and dropped the tab in the pond, where it will dissolve slowly and got rid of all the mosquito larvae. I really was hoping that by having the pond, it would attract natural predators of mosquitoes and other pests. I really wanted to attract frogs to the pond and GUESS WHAT?

We have frogs! I am not sure what type we have, but we now have three of them taking up residence! So, exciting!!!!! We have had them now for about 3 weeks, and I have become very protective of them! They are not bullfrogs, and I am still trying to figure out what type they are. I am thinking about building another wildlife pond next Spring!

A great reference book to get all the information you need about pollinator gardens, frogs, ponds, and other wildlife tips is called: Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife by David Mizejewski – Naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation. I purchased this book, and it is fantastic!

Please enjoy some pictures of the garden and the frogs!

Until Next Week- GET OUTSIDE!

Ann Marie