Eco-Friendly Backyards TTFs mission is to improve the health and - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Eco-Friendly Backyards

TTF’s mission is to improve the health and vitality of the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Creek and watershed — which includes neighborhoods in North, Northeast, and Northwest Philadelphia and Abington, Cheltenham, Jenkintown, Rockledge, and Springfield in Montgomery County — by engaging our communities in education, stewardship, restoration, and advocacy.

Abington Township

• Abington Junior High

School

• Abington Friends School
• McKinley Elementary

School

• Ethel Jordan Park
• Manor College
• Sisters of St. Basil the

Great Academy Cheltenham Township

• Rock Lane Park
• Glenside Elementary

School

• Cedarbrook Middle School

Philadelphia

• Olney Recreation Center
• Vernon Park

Creating Wildlife Habitat

• Shelter- A safe environment with lots of shrubs, trees

and ground cover of varied heights and diverse structure

• Food- Plant for a year round food source
• Water- Consistent supply
• Nesting materials

What You Need to Attract Birds

Different Birds Prefer Different Types of Shelter

96 % of All Birds Feed Their Young Insects Exclusively

• Only insects contain high enough levels of protein

and calcium needed to make bones and feathers.

• It takes ~6,000-10,000 caterpillars to raise one clutch
• f chickadee eggs

Birds and Many Other Animals Rely Primarily on Insects for Nutrition

The diet of most adult birds consists of 85% insects but some prefer fruit, nuts, seeds, nectar or worms.

Planting for Birds Means Planting for Insects

Insect Life-Cycles

Egg Larva Adult Pupa

Butterfly larvae eat leaves Bee larvae eat pollen Adults eat nectar

Insects Coevolved with Plants Over Millions of Years

Spice Bush Swallowtail

90% of All Insect Herbivores Are Specialists

• Specialists can generally use only 1-3 species or genera of

plants for food – think monarch butterfly and milkweed.

• The plants that these insects eat are the native plants that they

coevolved with over millions of years.

• Exotic plants generally support very few to 0 native insects or
• herbivores. It is for this reason that many become invasive.

Baltimore Checkerspot White Turtlehead Spicebush Lindera benzoin

Planting for Insects and Birds Means Planting Native Plants

Definition of Native-

A plant or animal that has evolved in a given place over a period of time sufficient to develop complex and essential relationships with the physical environment and other organisms in a given ecological community. Asclepias incarnata – Swamp Milkweed Goldfinch

• n native

thistles

Since less than 0.01% of all native insects are actually pests, integrated pest management (IPM) can usually keep infestations under control.

No Pesticides for a Wildlife-friendly Garden

By luring predators and parasitoids into your garden using flowers, you can effectively control most unwanted pests.

• Pollination
• Control of pests
• Decay of waste
• Food

Ecosystem Services Provided by Insects

Ambush bug Blue orchard bee Ground Beetle Parasitic wasp

Parasitized Saddleback caterpillar

Food for Fall and Winter

As summer turns to fall the metabolism of birds

• changes. Birds that rely on insects or nectar-

producing flowers for food must migrate. Others change their diet to nuts, seeds or berries. Some insects wrap themselves in leaves and fall to the ground where they

• verwinter. Many overwinter as eggs

tucked in a casing that is camouflaged as a dead leaf. Many bees lay their eggs in hollow plant stems or in an underground nest.

Water Year Round

Creating Habitat for Nesting

What You Need to Attract Butterflies and Moths

• Lots of nectar sources – Red, yellow,
• range, white, pink and purple flat

topped or short tubed flowers

• Plant flowers in the sun in sweeps or

masses

• Specific host plants for larvae
• A shallow water source with minerals
• r mud puddle

Asclepias incarnata – Swamp Milkweed Lonicera sempervirens- Trumpet honeysuckle Symphyotrichum lateriflorum – Calico Aster Phlox panniculata- Garden Phlox Symphyotrichum ericoides- White Heath Aster

What You Need to Attract Bees

• Simple flowers – no double petal types
• Yellow, white, blue and purple flowers

planted in masses or sweeps

• Rotting wood for them to take cover or
• pen ground to nest in underground
• Water in a very shallow container
• Consistent flowers from Spring to Fall

Baptisia australis – Wild Blue Indigo Eryngium yuccifolium- Rattlesnake Master

Uvularia grandiflora- Large-Flowered Bellwort

Symphyotrichum laeve- Smooth Blue Aster Rudbeckia hirta- Black-eyed Susan

• A bird bath or other source of water including mud puddles for butterflies
• A consistent source of food
• A source of live caterpillars or insects for the bird babies
• A diverse mixture of trees and shrubs of different sizes including evergreens-Woodie

plants with nuts, seeds or berries are ideal

• Diverse plantings of flowers, grasses and ferns preferably planted in sweeps or clusters
• No pesticides
• Nesting materials like small grasses, twigs, spider webs, hollow plant stems or fuzzy

plants

• A safe place to nest like a birdhouse or big dead tree
• Leaf litter for insect shelters- don’t rake it all up
• Some bare ground for the ground nesting bees or wood for beetles and bees
• A pile of branches is also good for cover

Elements of a Wildlife-Friendly Garden

https://www.audubon.org/native-plants