Wouldn’t it be spectacular if you could design your landscape in a way that attracted and assisted wildlife? What if you could cut cost at the same time? What if you could break out of the mould and have a property that was truly beautiful.

You can! In fact you can do all of those things no matter where you live in an apartment, city, suburbs or country you can create a wildlife-friendly landscape design if you live in the heart of an urban centre. You can attract birds and wildlife suited to your area to take up residence in your backyard.

Wildlife does not just randomly appear in a given area. They arrive when there is favourable habitat. Wildlife landscaping allows you to attract beautiful songbirds, cheerful butterflies and other interesting wildlife to your yard.

As wildlife areas are lost to development, wildlife depends more and more on homeowners to provide food for them. If you want to attract a variety of wildlife to your yard, the most important thing you must do is to provide food.

Food for wildlife is easy to provide. A variety of food sources will invite a variety of wildlife. Food sources include seeds, berries, nuts, flower nectar, insects, and other wildlife.

Choose a variety of native plants that produce seed or fruit at different times of the year. Most songbirds require insects in their diet so do your best to avoid the use of insecticides as these are toxic to most wildlife.

Select plants that are adapted to the growing conditions in your area. Generally native species and their selections from nearby sources are a good first choice because they are adapted to local conditions.