It just happens in my yard.

I plant the flowers and fill the bird feeders. Birds come. Bird baths and houses are very cottagey in the garden.

If you plant daylilies, Indian Hawthorne, and tomatoes, bunnies will move in immediately whether you want them or not. (I wish they'd move to the neighbors house.)

As for butterflies...plant nectar flowers. Honeysuckle, lantana, pentas, butterfly bush, pincushion flowers, etc. Watering your plants regularly means places for the critters to drink, too.

A source of clean water is primary these hot, dry days. While an elaborate waterfall into a pond complete with expensive koi for the blue herons to use as a sushi bar would be nice, a dripping faucet somewhere that fills a shallow dish that overflows will suit wildlife just fine. Several sources of fresh water are even better. Hummingbird feeders with sugar water changed every couple of days will attract them.

Food sources: Shrubs with berries, like hollies. Native plants. Sunflowers. Oaks and Pecans provide nuts for squirrels.

Shelter: Stacked wood for hiding places, a standing dead tree trunk provides insects as well as shelter, shrubs and trees for making nests.

If the garden is not too neatly swept, it pleases the creatures better. There needs to be debris for tiny food sources for bigger creatures, and on up the food chain. I often hear towhees scratching in leaves under shrubs for insects. Toads catch flying insects. Non-poisonous snakes catch mice.

So far I've only shared sunflowers with deer. DH provided them a water source a half mile away because we thought water was what attracted them, rather than food.

Nell

Here is a link that might be useful: National Wildlife Federation

We have the National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat certification. You just need food, shelter, water for critters such as birds, frogs/toads, bees, etc.

Cameron

I have added bushes/trees that provide berries - viburnums, serviceberry, etc. and the birds love them. They also flower as an added bonus.

I think it goes together automatically, too. With the wide variety of plants in cottage gardens, birds and animals get very happy.

When we first moved out here to the "country" I was surprised to find far fewer songbirds than we were used to in our old suburban garden. I really missed them! So we rounded up a defunct bird feeder and started putting out treats for the birds (especially in winter) and planted all sorts of things that they like. We have lots of tree snags in the woods around our place. The woods are pretty dense and they love having that cover. We have a couple of bird baths and a little waterfall fountain. It is so exciting when cardinals or doves come right up to the edge of the porch where we are sitting to drink from the hollow rock!

Now we enjoy watching all kinds of birds - lots of cardinals, blue jays, brown thrashers, woodpeckers, wrens, doves, mockingbirds, blue birds, hummingbirds, gold finches, etc, etc. And to think that the most common bird around here when we moved in was the vulture!! I even get to spend late evenings sitting on the porch listening to the "Chuck Will's Widow" - how cool is that?

For bids...especially goldfinches...rudbeckia, verbena bonariensis.
I agree with happyintexas...if you build it they will come. I saw 2 bumblebees asleep in the center of some cosmos sulphureus blooms this evening. Awwwwwwww.... :)

Pam

Cottage gardening, birds and butterflies fit like peas in a pod - they are a natural. Do what everyone has stated so far and you will be amazed at the amount of activity you will get. Couple things to remember - you do have to put up with a few munched leaves in your garden if you want a bunch of butterflies. Plant some host plants for the caterpillars to feed on. Go easy on any pesticides. Leave seed heads form so the finches will visit and munch away. Plant lots of tubular flowers for the hummingbirds. Provide water and birdhouses and sit back and enjoy.....

Lynne

I didn't have much time to write about this, so here's how we attract and keep the wildlife.

I have a mass planting of the verbena bonariensis that I planted just for our goldfinches. They love it.

Right now, the bees are in a total frenzy on all of the hypericum blooms (St. Johns Wort). Previously, it was the lavender and nepeta.

For the butterflies, I have bronze fennel, parsley and milkweed planted as host plants. My milkweed hasn't bloomed, so it hasn't been used as a host. I have lots of food source for them through flowers. We have a birdbath that where we keep wet sand for a beach for them.

For the hummingbirds, I have penstemon, monarda and agastache scattered throughout the entire garden. I have a grouping of salvia red Navajo, which they really love. There are many other plants that they like, too. One of the guys watches me refill the feeders and will beg when they are empty. He buzzes me quite often when I'm outside. He has a favorite branch in our willow tree where he sits when we're on the front porch.

Frogs, both tree frogs and bullfrogs, live in our manmade stream in the garden and the natural creek in our woods. We have toads throughout the garden. The geckos follow us around the garden and sun themselves on our stone foundation, steps and porch.

We have bluebird houses throughout our neighborhood and we have them on our property as well. We have shrubs that serve as shelter and our property is also bordered by acres of woods on two sides. They are particularly fond of our wax myrtles (plant them away from the house because the scent isn't good) and hollies. They like to hang out in our willow trees to scope out the garden and get in line at the birdfeeders. For some reason, they love our clump bamboo, so as it grows larger, I'm wondering if it will become a home.

We also have open meadow which attracts mourning doves (who also walk around our garden paths all the time), rufous-sided towhees, meadowlarks, robins and bluebirds. There are several woodpeckers who visit our feeders. The goldfinches are the most common in our garden. The carolina chickadees also hang out and get very close to me (they know who supplies the food, I suppose).

Yes, I'm a crazy lady who talks to all these critters who are hanging around me all the time! My son thought I was crazy, but after working in the garden with me during his spring break, he started talking to the critters, too! :-)

Lastly, we have the cute, but destructive deer and squirrel population. A doe had her fawn in the woods next our house last year and she did the same thing this year. They aren't afraid of us, or our greyhound. Here's the latest addition (taken in the rain and 15x zoom, so it's fuzzy):
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WOW!!! I am so very impressed with all of the ideas everyone has given me. I would LOVE to have a nice size land area where I could attract more. My lot is almost an acre and in a small town.

I will definately be checking into some of those plants mentioned.

The birds I get around here are: (in order of population) are Grackles, Sparrows, Ground Doves (the small ones), a family of blue jays (3) and I have seen 1 male and 1 female cardinal at my feeder, that is all.

I would really love to get those golfinches to come around (oh, and orioles).......

I also have rabbits, squirrels and the occasional racoon family......caught them on my porch one day when I left a bag of cat foot sitting out. I have also seen possioms (sp) in my yard.

Nature is so very beautiful, but DH prefers GRASS over trees and shrubs because he does not want to weed eat, so I am slowly building up to trying to make some gardens.
We have three large bird dogs, but none of them harm the birds, in fact one baby bird entered our front door last year and the german short-haired pointed snatched it up in his mouth and I told him to drop it, he did not even leave a bite mark, very gentle. One of my other dogs (an English Setter) falls over backwards watching birds fly in the air. What a funny sight.

It is very hard getting birds to come, I have a birdbath, but DH refuses to put in some type of running water system. I have a tree feeder that does not attact hardly anything at all. It is a Brome and is supposed to be one of the best. It keeps squirrels out by a weight sensor. What about feeders (I would love to see some American Goldfinches) (what kind of flowers do they like best)?

I am sorry this is so long, but I really want to make things perfect the first time around. We have a great wrap around porch in our front yard and a huge hard maple that sits lower to the ground (the branches). We also have fir/spruce trees that are extremely low and I notice that is where the rabbits live. What I especially love to see every evening is when one rabbit comes out to take a few nips from my ground feeder, so very cute.

Thanks all!!!! Everyone here is so great!! :)

I cottage garden on a city lot. I don't think I could handle any more gardens! I can barely keep up with what I got :)

Did I understand you correctly? You're not getting a lot of action at your bird feeder? I use only black sunflower seeds in mine and get pretty good action in the winter. In the summer I don't fill them because there is so much available. I use the cage type feeders, but I must confess, they are not completely squirrel proof:

{{gwi:340204}}

It took me actually seeing it with my own eyes to realize the squirrel had figured out a way to pop the lid off the feeder :) I had seen him do it with the house type feeders, that was funny enough, watching him lift up the lid and sit inside like he was a little rajah, but I had no idea he had figured this one out. (I fixed it now!)

Here's a link to my photobucket site, you can see the individual flowers on the main page, but the "yard shots" album will give you the panoramic view.

Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: Lisa's Gardens

Lovefornature, this doesn't happen overnight. I've lived on my acre for nearly seven years. Only in the last two or three years have we attracted a lot of wildlife. Why? Our outdoor cat went to kitty heaven. Also our Border collie no longer lives with us. Our lazy golden retriever doesn't chase rabbits unless they crawl on him. So the bunnies know this is a safe haven. :0)

Also, in the last two or three years, we've added lots more shrubs to the back garden area. I've built a secret, white garden back there.

Most of our plants have begun to mature from the tiny babies we planted. They now provide much more food and shelter than they used to.

We watered a lot during the past two year's drought. That helped the plants and attracted animals.

Start with bird feeders filled with black oil sunflower seeds and a bird bath. Add shrubs and nectar plants and before long you will have oodles of critters in your garden.

Patience!

Re goldfinches:

I get tons of goldfinches by offering them a thistle feeder (black nyger (sp?) seeds). It has tiny holes so the bigger birds can't get at the seeds. The goldfinches go nuts for it. Also they love the sunflowers that volunteer under the black oil sunflower feeder -- I don't have to plant them, they just pop up there. Try putting a black oil sunflower feeder over some empty ground and you too can have a ton of medium-sized sunflowers (about 3 feet tall). Another thing I tried this year that seemed to go over well with the goldfinches is a Havegard Best Nest Builder. It's a compressed bunch of shredded cotton that hangs on a string. You put it out next to the bird feeders or the plants they're visiting, and they pluck cotton from it for their nests. The goldfinches visit it regularly and spend a long time gathering just the right tuft of cotton for their nests. It was a gift, so I don't know where you would find it, but I'll bet you can find info online, or even make one out of quilt batting or some other soft material. Also, the goldfinches are frequent visitors at my birdbath -- I don't have running water, I just change the water every day or two.

Lisa,

I had to laugh when I saw your picture.

I gave up on bird feeders a long time ago after I saw a squirrel lift a tube feeder off a limb, then climb down to the ground and run away with it. He would've escaped with it too, except for the fact that he couldn't lift up the feeder and scale our 6' wood fence at the same time.

Now, I just concentrate on planting berry laden bushes, seed bearing flowers and keeping my birdbath clean and filled.

Speaking of my bird bath, last year during our drought I once looked out my kitchen window and was greeted by the sight of a squirrel laying spread eagled on his back doing the back float in my bird bath, completely at ease. He looked like he was enjoying a spa treatment. :-)

Marilyn

Lisa -- I love that photo! Your garden gallery is chock full of beautiful flowers. I really enjoyed browsing.

Cameron

If anyone has given up feeding the birds because of squirrels, I have bird feeders that are *indeed* squirrel proof and have been since we installed them. We used metal plumbing pipe and made a "T" shape about 6 feet tall and 4 feet across the top of the "T". They are set in concrete. We then purchased an 8" stove pipe with a lid to match that size and installed on the upright part of the "T"...held there by resting on a circle shape bracket that also came from the big box store. The pipe is too wide for a squirrel to hang on to it and can only climb inside it rather than over it. Works great. I'll be glad to post a photo if anyone is interested.

I enjoy feeding the squirrels...they just eat what falls on the ground instead of what's in my feeders. :)

Like Cameron, my garden is a certified Backyard Habitat, through the National Wildlife Federation. -They have lots of great info on how to attract and keep wildlife in your garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: NWF - Creating a backyard habitat

Lisa, wonderful pictures and great stores!!! The squirrel in the feeder and the one taking a nap in the birdbath. I ROFL over that one!!

Great ideas and I cannot wait to get started planning for the rest of this year and next year.

Thank you susanc for the NWF Website also.

Wonderful picture of the deer also, I just love seeing deer.

Thanks again to all of you!!!!