The Backyard Experiment

About twelve years ago, I read Doug Tallhamy’s book Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants while working on my Texas Master Naturalist certification. That was the beginning of my love for wildlife gardening. At the time, we were living in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. I decided to plant a butterfly garden with three tropical milkweed plants (the host for monarch butterflies) and a couple of nectar plants. Honestly, I had done very little gardening up to that point, and I was terrified of killing everything. Fortunately, a friend of mine, who was also a Master Gardener, told me that everyone loses a plant now and then, just learn from it.

All was going well until we went on vacation. When we returned, the milkweed had been devoured. There was nothing left! Apparently three plants were not going to be enough. I asked my husband if he would help expand the garden. Our backyard was small, so I was thinking maybe two or three raised beds. But my husband is the kind of man who believes that if we are going to do something, we should go for it—along the lines of go big, or go home. (Plus, then it is less likely that I will bother him during football season.) Anyway, we put down heavy, dark plastic over several areas of our backyard during the winter in order to kill the St. Augustine grass. Then I immersed myself in Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region, an invaluable resource written by Sally and Andy Wasowski.

In the spring, we constructed twelve wooden frames, and we ordered mountains of soil. It was finally time for the plants. I gathered seed packets and shopped at native plant nurseries. I also went to a native plant sale at a local nature center. Now that is an experience. If you think that Black Friday is an event, you should see native plant people in action. Let’s just say that you should print out a map and plan your route the day before you go. Memorize it. While running is discouraged, running shoes are not a bad idea.

The project was a huge success. After attending a habitat gardening workshop at the Houston Arboretum, we added a water fountain and a few more shrubs. (The workshop instructors emphasized the importance of food, water, and shelter.) In addition to a diverse population of butterflies and their caterpillars, we had three active bluebird nesting boxes and many other visitors to our backyard. Sadly, five years later, we had to leave our garden behind when my husband accepted a new job in the Texas Hill Country (our current home).

But…our new home was on one acre outside the city limits. One country acre! Imagine what we could do with that.

Books About Nature:
Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants
By Doug Tallhamy
Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region
By Sally and Andy Wasowski