Our backyard began drying up yesterday, so I mulched the Butterfly Bushes and surrounded each one with logs from our day of pruning.
A pond in our low spot continued all day, so the birds had a merry time bathing in it. They love a shallow pond for splashing. Our streets have plenty of low spots where birds bathe after every storm. The largest is Lake Gideon, across from where Gideon the Great Dane once lived. I use that pond to determine how wet or dry the soil is. I water when the lake disappears entirely.
The birds splashing makes me think of lining the low spot with plastic for an ongoing avian playpool and toad nursery. If I do, mosquito control will definitely be included in the planning.
I keep us in fresh fruit, so we have berries, apples, peaches, nectarines, grapes, citrus, and bananas at various times. Our neighbor has a pear tree that drops pears into our yard, probably from squirrels biting them off and dropping them. Each one landing has small bite marks in it.
Some fruit is going to go bad when kept, so I make sure the birds have a chance. A starling took an old apple, soft and brown, and pecked it into oblivion with its powerful beak. Various berries left at the Jackson Bird Spa disappear. I have been transplanting wild strawberries around the yard and found them volunteering in many places, doubtless from birds planting them for me. Doubtless a baby bird diaper would be an ideal package for an undigested seed, a mucous covering, and a bit of fertilizer.
Truly rotten fruit goes into the compost to provide simple sugars and moisture. I have a pumpkin patch started there for fun.
I would rather grow the berries, so I have raspberries, blackberries, and giant strawberries growing, with some chance for gooseberries.
If I read about an easy to grow flower that creates bird-friendly seed, I order some and plant it around the marginal areas.
So Far
The potatoes in the Straw Bale Garden are growing like mad now. Every rose is either blooming, budding, or leafing out.
The corn, planted May 1, has not germinated. The regular holes in the garden make me think the kernels were all dug up after planting. Corn can be slow to germinate and the weather has remained cold at night.
