Mariposa Gardening and Design Blog
What is a “habitat garden?”
Habitat Gardens can be thought of in a variety of ways. However, when we are designing and installing a garden with Mariposa Gardening & Design, our focus is on what we can do to provide more food, water and shelter for birds, butterflies and beneficial insects. This is important because through development and overuse of pesticides (among other factors) we are taking habitat for these small creatures away at a rate so alarming that scientists are beginning to worry now about the population decline of our pollinator species. Without pollinators, we essentially don’t eat. Our lives depend on a diversity of flying insects to keep pest populations in check, and to pollinate our food crops including grains, fruit and vegetables. Without pollinators, we wouldn’t have grasses either, which feed the animals we eat and get milk from. Providing habitat, even in a small urban lot, for our winged friends is an essential way that we can contribute to the health of the planet.
I often discuss the merits of habitat gardening with my new clients. Creating gardens that welcome birds and butterflies is also beautiful and magical. It has taken me the better part of the last 15+ years to learn how to create a garden that has a kind of magical feeling to it. This has meant learning all about the different native and ornamental trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and grasses and learning how they each provide habitat both alone and in combination with one another. It has also meant doing all of this and making the garden look like a well-intentioned and well-designed garden, not a hodge-podge of wild looking plants.