#we have been cultivating milkweed along the edges of my yard

[kedreeva]

saw a monarch butterfly on a milkweed plant for the first time in my life and it was like seeing a little legend play out before my eyes

[humanegardener]

To save wild nature, we have to attend to human nature, too. Here’s how to garden for all your neighbors, domesticated and otherwise.

Chairs, paths and other simple cues add a human element to our roadside wildlife habitat. (Photos above by Nancy Lawson)

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ears ago, a colleague was relaxing in his backyard when he heard a noise. Upon investigation, he discovered a stranger heading through an open window and toward his couch. It wasn’t a traditional home invasion, though. The squatter had taken one look at the property and assumed it was unoccupied: Why else, he reasoned, would the yard be so “overgrown” with wild plants?

This was not the scenario I’d envisioned when my workmate first asked for wildlife gardening advice. While offering ideas and plants from my habitat, I’d assured him he’d see butterflies and other animals taking up residence. It never occurred to me that his efforts would also encourage fellow humans to climb through his windows.

The problem was that the new gardener had implemented only half my suggestions, putting his plants directly into the old lawn that sloped to a busy sidewalk. He didn’t feel like bothering with part 2, which would have involved digging out the turf around his plantings or smothering it with newspaper and mulch. Instead, he let that old lawn grow high. The result was not the layered native plant garden I had imagined but a smattering of wildflowers engulfed in out-of-place fescues and invasives gone to seed. (Adding to the abandoned-home effect was an ascetic and nearly opposite approach indoors, where all walls, tables and shelves were bare.)

Though the front-yard planting was partly intentional, it didn’t look that way to other people. Without “cues to care”—a phrase coined by landscape architect Joan Iverson Nassauer to describe visual hints of human stewardship—the property resembled an abandoned lot or roadside ditch. While I find such free-range, self-willed patches beautiful because of their high value to wildlife, most suburbanites accustomed to mowed-down yards and sterile office parks see them as aberrant.

“Cues to care,” a concept first described in the 1990s, refers to visual signals of human intention. At Molly McElwee’s home in Catonsville, Md., a Baywise certification sign alerts passersby to the landscape’s ecological purpose. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

As an environmentalist and wildlife advocate, I alternate between pushing for the world as it should be and accepting modest improvements to the one we’ve already created. Knowing how important a “messy” garden is to animals large and small, I’m often tempted to blow off the mass appeal of homogenized landscapes entirely. But if my quest to help nature doesn’t also attend to human nature, I risk something greater than the encroachment of an intruder just looking for a place to sleep: I risk losing the chance to influence the broader community. Research shows that neighborhood norms strongly influence landscape choices, and if well-maintained ecological gardens are more prevalent, they may have positive ripple effects across a community.

In replacing lawn with this new pathway to my front door, I’m nurturing an inviting space for neighbors and friends as well as habitat for wildlife . (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

And helping wildlife and meeting community standards aren’t mutually exclusive goals.  “For way too  long, I’ve heard from plenty of gardeners that the reason they don’t want to use native plants is that they’re messy-looking, and that’s just not true,” says James Faupel, the restoration ecology coordinator at Missouri Botanical Garden’s Litzsinger Road Ecology Center. “The wildlife will still use all these native plants, even if we design the plantings in a more traditional fashion.”

Most of my own 2-acre habitat is less of a garden now and more of a nature preserve. But in the areas of the front yard that are visible to neighbors, I put a bit of thought into appealing to the senses of the human animal as well. I know there’s no pleasing some people, like the couple in the cul-de-sac who cut down all their trees. But many more neighbors are open and at least mildly curious about this little wildlife paradise, stopping now to inquire about the flowers, admire the bees and butterflies, and even ask if I have any extra plants they can take home to their yards.

By incorporating the following visual signals of intentionality and care that I’ve learned from landscape designers and artistic friends over the years, I’ve been able to ensure we can fit in with our neighbors, both wild and otherwise, as well as inspire the creation of more oases for animals.

Let plants lead by example.

Winterberries are more palatable after freeze-thaw cycles, so they brighten the landscape late into the season before finally serving as emergency food  for wildlife.  (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

When a highway planting of winterberry hollies bore beautiful red fruit, excited homeowners called the Delaware Center for Horticulture for more information about the stunning shrub. The response surprised University of Delaware professor Sue Barton. “By planting something on the roadside,” she marvels, “I could make a bigger impact on people than anything I could ever write or lecture about.”

Long after the leaves have fallen off the winterberries, a mockingbird guards his fruit. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Adding native plants with colorful fruit or flowers to your own front yard can produce similar results, providing priceless PR for wildlife gardens while also nourishing their visitors. Those winterberries burn bright through much of the cold season because they become more palatable after a few freeze-thaw cycles; in late winter when other food is scarce, the fruits are emergency food for birds and mammals. In the summer and fall garden, plants that serve as both wildlife feeders and people pleasers include mountain mints, Joe Pye weeds, milkweeds, bonesets, coneflowers and many other native wildflowers.

Blooming as early as March and as late as November, the native coral honeysuckle vine (Lonicera sempervirens) invites our neighbors to admire its lush blooms and hummingbirds to feast. Hummingbird moth caterpillars rely on the foliage, and chipmunks and Eastern comma butterflies enjoy the fruit. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Frame the view.

Layered plantings are essential for creating wildlife habitat, drawing much more life than the large lawn across the street from us. They also add sloping lines for human eyes to follow. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Think about how you and your family might use the space, and design your wildlife plantings accordingly, suggests Faupel. Look out the window to see the garden from another perspective, and consider where you’ll need pathways for walking and access to beds. “It doesn’t have to be this big, beautiful blueprint kind of drawing. It can be a lot simpler,” says Faupel. “But if you start with that design element from the get-go, it’s going to look a lot more intentional to people. They will see that you are trying; they will see a more layered effect.”

The view from Molly McElwee’s front door is open and formal but also overflowing with wildlife-friendly plants. In addition to natives, she includes more conventional garden plants that are recognizable to neighbors, a strategy that Faupel employs in his home garden as well. Read more about the McElwee garden here. (Photo by Molly McElwee)

Mulling over plant choices and layout also helps ensure you have enough food and shelter for different types of wildlife throughout the seasons. Habitat hedgerows provide winter shelter and summer nesting sites for birds and small mammals while conveying neatness and order—traits considered desirable in the landscape since ancient Roman times. Rows of low-growing native flowers, grasses, sedges and ferns help define the edges while nourishing bees, butterflies, and many other animals. A mowed strip along the road in front of all these plants “frames patches of greater biodiversity with clear signs of human intention,” Nassaeur wrote, and makes unconventional plantings seem familiar.

A hedge keeps our streetside planting more uniform and provides cover for birds and rabbits, But it also creates a screen that helps me privately experiment with cultivating wilder spaces. This one started with a planting of red buckeyes, grey dogwoods, ferns and other native groundcovers, and soon enough staghorn sumacs and Eastern red cedars made themselves at home, too.

Plant in drifts.

Large drifts of just a few low-growing native plants—Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica), roundleaf ragwort (Packera obovata), and sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis)—provide habitat within the context of a formal garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve. (Photo courtesy James Faupel)

Too often gardeners treat a trip to the nurseries or native plant sales like a run on Filene’s Basement and fill their cars with anything that catches their fancy, only to get home and wonder where the heck they’ll put everything. (I’m guilty as charged.) Avoid the “collector mentality,” advises Faupel, because it almost always results in a hodgepodge that’s confusing not just to human eyes but also to pollinators. Many native bees spend their time gathering pollen only from certain species, and even those who are less discriminating can’t afford to expend too much energy flying around in search of more flowers. To create a planting that’s readable and functional for both human and wild neighbors, aim to start with a dozen plants, recommends Faupel: three that bloom in early spring, three in late spring/early summer, three in mid-summer, and three in fall.

An exuberant groundcover, golden ragwort (Packera aurea), helps tie together multiple gardens across my front yard, including in this grove of sassafras trees edged with sedges next to the driveway. After flowering, it stays evergreen nearly all year. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Many gardeners pull fleabane (Erigeron spp.) despite its value to bees, rabbits and groundhogs. Two years ago, I moved some from the pathways to create a clump at the edge of the rain garden, where it’s still free to reseed. The large drift makes the planting look intentional, elevating the status of a native species often dismissed as a “weed.” (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

As a longtime home gardener before I started working in ecological landscaping, I know how expensive it can be to buy multiples of a single plant at retail prices. Many native wildflowers are easy to grow from seed, and I also encourage gardeners to allow as many plants as possible to spread naturally in their gardens; you can always transplant or give away extras if your space fills up. An increasing number of companies—from Izel Plants to Missouri Wildflowers Nursery—offer small plants or plugs that can be much more affordable; check with your state native plant or botanical society for regional recommendations.

Create pathways.

Taming the wild: Human-friendly paths define the wilder plantings at the McElwee residence. DeKay’s snakes like to hang out under the arborvitae to the right of the milkweed. (Photo by Molly McElwee)

Paths through our meadow enticed our niece to go exploring on her own. When she returned after spending some time under a tulip poplar at the bottom of the slope, she said, “I found a special place!” (Photo by Will Heinz)

Though I’ve spent my whole life yearning to be surrounded by plants whenever possible, some people have a more claustrophobic reaction to lush vegetation. Impenetrable plantings can exacerbate fears of nature and feelings of separation from the natural world. Walkways winding through gardens have the opposite effect, inviting interaction with the landscape. When my niece was 7 years old and spotted a mowed path through our meadow, she fired up her wheelchair and took off by herself to explore, finding a new favorite spot under a tree all on her own.

Wildlife follow routines, too, traveling the same paths every day. By edging those paths with vigorous plants they can nibble, including goldenrod, sassafras and black raspberry (above), we’ve fed deer and other mammals enough to deter them from other plants. I also mix in scented natives they don’t prefer, including the lavender-colored wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) shown in the planting below. (Photos by Nancy Lawson)

Paths are just as well-trodden by wildlife, including deer. You can use this knowledge to help design a space where you and the herbivores can more easily coexist. When staghorn sumacs, ticktrefoils and goldenrods volunteer along pathways, I leave them, knowing they’ll get browsed soon enough. If certain plants are growing near a path that I want to protect from browsing (such as tasty Joe Pye weed, whose flowers will later feed butterflies and bees), I often add scented native plants in front of them—mountain mints, monardas, blue mistflowers, bonesets—to create an effective deterrent.

Use wood and rocks as habitat-rich natural sculptures.

When a neighbor cut down trees, my husband placed pieces of the trunk around the gardens. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Lining pathways and beds with rocks or branches creates navigational cues as well as hiding places for amphibians and other small animals. “I’m a huge fan of using found objects within the property,” says ecological landscape designer Jesse Elwert Peters of Jessecology, based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. “The land that we live on is really rocky. Whenever we’re gardening, we dig up huge boulders.” Peters artfully arranges these unearthed treasures among plants.

Peekaboo! Leave fallen logs, and many animals will find them. (Photo by James Faupel)

Tree snags, logs, and pithy stalks are essential to cavity-nesting bees. (Photo by James Faupel)

At the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center, a fallen log provided a home this summer for broad-headed skinks, and Faupel also watched a mason bee checking out a tree snag as a nesting site. “It was just going around to every single little hole, stopping and seeing if it could fit, trying to find the perfect-sized hole,” he says. “These things are incredibly important, and it just goes to show you how many things wildlife are using. … A lot of people complain about carpenter bees in their home, going into porches and thing like that. Well, it’s because they don’t have anywhere else to go. We remove any kind of habitat for them.”

Logs and branches line beds and create art pieces in my habitat, where I sometimes hang bird baths from the dead limbs. (Photos by Nancy Lawson)

Our stumps are home to woolly bear caterpillars. PIleated woodpeckers snack on beetles and ants living in the decaying wood. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

By placing a bat house atop a tree snag, Maryland artist Melinda Byrd created a sculptural habitat. Though bats have yet to roost, woodpeckers have excavated holes in the dead trunk, building homes for nesting chickadees and bluebirds. Stumps in my own garden offer shelter to woolly bear caterpillars, one of whom crawled into a crevice last year to make his home for the winter.

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Bluebirds and chickadees nested in this snag following excavation by woodpeckers. Growing a vine on the snag would also create a natural trellis. (Photos by Melinda Byrd)

Add functional ornaments, and have a seat—or two.

While visiting the native plant area at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Gardens at Elm Bank, I felt right at home. But for those intimidated by tall plants, a trellis and seat made of natural materials provides a calming, “we-meant-to-do-this” effect. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

A fountain by our walkway pleases people and birds. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Arbors and trellises suggest a planned landscape in addition to offering support for climbing native vines. Birdbaths and water dishes on the ground are also recognizable cues of human influence. “It looks really nice, and it’s really a kind thing to do for wildlife,” Peters says. Even the suggestion of human habitation can ground a garden and help people feel more in their element. Adding chairs and tables near unconventional plantings lets them know that they, too, have an open invitation.

A chair among the grapevines, wild senna, trumpet creeper and hickory trees gives me a secret spot to watch wildlife without disturbing them. While I don’t expect anyone else to get this cozy with my plants, this simple addition to an otherwise “wild” spot never fails to inspire expressions of delight when visitors come upon it. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

From this roadside vantage point in our informal front-yard garden, we see squirrels peel walnuts, hummingbirds drink from  cardinal flowers, monarchs lay eggs on milkweed, and neighbors out for a walk who stop to chat. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

In Sue Arnold’s Indianapolis garden, the backyard is also a front yard of sorts, visible to other neighbors who live around the lake. A seating area is all it takes to remove any sense of randomness from the natural plantings of grasses and wildflowers. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Post signs of the times.

Not long after I installed my Monarch Waystation sign, a male hatched in the milkweed patch and sat for a spell on the sign to dry his wings. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

When my signs became unruly, my husband and father conspired to create a totem for them, complete with a carved bird my dad made for the top—whose shape a visiting reporter deemed “half-cardinal, half-kookaburra.” Several neighbors have inquired about where they can find such signs for their own gardens. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

“Pollinator Habitat,” “Monarch Waystation,” “Humane Backyard,” “Bat Friendly”—at my house I refer to these signs as my 37 pieces of flair, but they’re more meaningful than the tacky pins Jennifer Aniston’s waitressing character is forced to wear in the film Office Space. Habitat signs from organizations like the Xerces Society, the Humane Society of the United States, the Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Save Lucy Campaign let your neighbors know your property is in transition to a more life-sustaining landscape. It even helped Texas master gardener Mary Karish fend off misguided demands to replace her garden with grass, “making it very difficult for the HOA to overturn what the city thought was a great thing,” she says.

Driving by a house in Newark, Delaware, last year, I was delighted to find a garden packed with native plants. At the corner of the property, in easy view of passersby, a sign from a nearby Audubon chapter explained the importance of the garden to birds. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

You can contextualize your efforts by posting explanations of the importance of dead wood, available from the Cavity Conservation Initiative, and signs declaring your yard “pesticide-free.” These visual anchors can also help you spread the seeds of an idea—along with the seeds of your milkweed and other wildlife-friendly plants—far beyond your own habitat.

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Wild by Design To save wild nature, we have to attend to human nature, too. Here's how to garden for all your neighbors, domesticated and otherwise.