Landscape Considerations

Wildlife gardens can help recreate mini-ecosystems. Choose your native plants that will do well in yards with the following conditions:

Full Sun Dry Conditions:

Direct sunlight and open spaces: can provide a meadowscape or prairies scape setting, with drought tolerant,grasses, sedges and wildlife flowers species adapted to full sunlight conditions.

Rocky opening or terraced hillsides of southern and western slopes: can provide a glade like setting requiring drought-tolerant, sun-loving grasses, sedums, and shrubs.

Moist Sun Conditions:

Low areas with wet soil similar to marsh, swamp like settings: allow for wetland and bog plants, grasses and coastal flowering shrubs. These colorful plants attract frogs, dragonflies, birds and other critters that will love the food and cover this area provides.

Dry Shade Conditions:

This landscape can be a challenge even for the most accomplished gardeners. Designing to support the site with drought resistant native plants that thrive in those conditions while providing great cover for all kinds of woodland creatures.

Many large hardwood trees: can provide a forest setting with large canopy cover that allows for multiple layers of woody plants, such as understory trees, shrubs, ferns and shade-loving perennials.

Scattered trees (less than 30% of the landscape): can provide a woodland setting of dappled sunlight through summer and contain some shade/part shade native flowers, ferns, grasses and sedges.