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Thoughts on native gardening

I love plants. I love the outdoors. I used to go backpacking every month. These days I might go backpacking once a year. Times have changed. So I tried to bring the outdoors to where I spend most of my time these days: home.

I am fortunate enough to work from home. My office is arranged in such a way that I can look out into my front yard where a beautiful garden, planted in 2022, is maturing nicely. One of the aspects of the garden that I did not fully appreciate during its conception, is its connection to the wildlife of the area. I'm typically so focused on plants that I forget about animals. 😅 But as I spend more time observing and maintaining the garden, I am finding critters that also enjoy it.

Argiope trifasciata

My daughter recently spotted this Orbweaver spider in the garden. Its web was full of seeds from a nearby Coyote Bush. In the garden, she has seen various beatles, praying mantids, salamanders, dragon flies, lots of bees (a swarm briefly took residence once), and butterflies. From my office window I saw enough birds hanging out on inflorescences of the White sage in the yard that I added a Raspberry Pi based bird call detection setup this year. So far it has heard and indentified over 90 species of birds in and around the garden. Some seem a little suspect, but the top detections all seem accurate from my observations.

mantid

I am curious to see what other critters begin to inhabit the garden as the shrubs and trees continue to grow.