With forethought and a few simple steps it is possible to have a beautiful garden, one that welcomes some of the local small wildlife animals. Gardens that are also places where the natural wildlife visit are the most natural and seem to be an extension of nature.

What does wildlife need? There may be small animals that visit your garden from time to time but most won’t come back unless there is a good reason. What they like is natural habitat or one they can feel comfortable in. You need to have water available before you can expect any animal to stay or visit. Merely placing a bucket or container of water they can reach will go a long way toward keeping small wildlife coming to your garden.

The other major requirement is to have food available for them. Without this they will probably eat the plants or flowers in your garden. Regularly setting out food for them will let them know this is a place they are wanted. Not too many creatures will pass up a good meal unless they are threatened or scared.

To feel in a natural setting, most small animals need shelter of some sort. This could be something covered and blended in with the other plants. It could be bushes the animals could hide under or behind. The more natural the setting the more the animals will feel at home and be willing to stay or come back often. Leaves twigs and bark can help make a realistic natural setting for the animals.

What animals might come? Depending on your location, you may see rabbits, squirrels, lizards, frogs, stray cats or other small animals. If you are in a populated city area maybe only the loose cats, squirrels, snakes or sometimes frogs. Each location may have different animals than others depending on the natural variety of animals in the area.

Here in my area all of those mentioned are seen, with the exception of snakes, which are very rare, although I have seen two long snakes in the 18 years living in my current house. There is occasionally a hawk or two circling overhead and I often wonder if they end up making a meal of the abundance of rabbits we sometimes have.

Unwanted wildlife creatures Some unwanted animals have also appeared in our yard, a skunk being the obvious one. There was however a large slow-moving possum once on our back patio. We have rabbits and they are generally welcome, but in our vegetable garden we had to protect the vegetables by putting some screen fencing around it otherwise the rabbits would get all the nourishment from the vegetables instead of us. They also eat the flowers but with all the grass we have a few flowers are usually spared and the tall ones they cannot reach.

Gardens in most areas Taking a few simple steps can help transform your garden into a place where not only plants live and thrive but to a more natural setting where the native small wildlife creatures can also come, visit, and feel at home. Even in city areas, such as Pasadena California where my mother lived her garden seemed to be home to a few wildlife creatures, lots of butterflies, and once in a while a stray cat or two. In my location next to Cleveland National Forest about an hour north of San Diego there seems to be a lot of small wildlife. This includes the coyote, which is now much less frequent than when we initially moved there.