Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Trees are habitat for wildlife. And if you’re adding new trees to your landscape, you need to know the rules.

People frequently ask how close they can put a tree to the house, because shade on the house obviously is a huge energy savings. The general rule of thumb is you go no closer to the house than the eaves are high. So, if you measure up to the eaves of your house, and it’s ten feet high, then you need to get ten feet back from the house.

Scott Harris, a certified arborist in Austin, recommends planting only native specimens.

You always want to plant your trees at the exact level they were in the pot. Don’t dig a big deep hole, dig a big wide hole. Always use the same soil you took out to backfill. But, you can put your compost underneath the mulch, and then all of that organic goodness will dribble down in the way that nature intended.

By watering infrequently and deeply, we can help new trees develop extensive root systems.

If you just have a little bit of water in one area, that’s where the roots are going to go. But if you water very deeply, it’ll spread into the surrounding soil, and the roots will follow that moisture out.

Strong root systems help trees remain strong and withstand drought.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

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This is passport to Texas

Now is an ideal time to plant trees throughout most of Texas…and you might wonder why.

Two reasons: the two most important constituents in tree planting—the people planting the trees and the trees. It’s just much easier on them.

Scott Harris is a certified arborist in Austin. Tree planting season in Texas started in October and continues through March.

Getting the trees in the ground in the fall [and winter], they have the entire cool season, dormant season, to spread roots out before the big demands on roots and water start in the spring.

Just because a tree will grow in Texas, doesn’t mean it should grow here. Harris advises that we all exercise caution about what we plant in our yards.

The biggest thing to avoid is non-natives. Our natives have all of the features you would want, but they’ve spent thousands and thousands of years getting used to being here, and with all of the wildlife used to having them, too. It’s all a web, and you can’t tell which string you can pull out without upsetting things.

Tomorrow we’ll have a few tree planting tips to help you and your newly planted tree enjoy a long and happy life together.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

If cats, dogs and grackles are the only wildlife visiting your backyard—you need a wildscape. Creating one is not as tough as you might think.

You know, the hardest part is just getting started.

Kelly Bender is an urban wildlife biologist and co-author of the book Texas Wildscapes. She was instrumental in creating the new Texas Wildscapes interactive DVD, which guides users through planning an urban oasis.

The Wildscape DVD is designed to help people to get started in planning their habitat, understanding what wildlife need to succeed, or to survive, and to give them the tools that they need to start implementing wildlife habitat management principles in their own gardens and landscapes.

Just pop the DVD into your computer, and a wealth of information, including which plants will grow in your area and what wildlife they attract, is at your fingertips.

We made this product that allows us to enter in different variables. So, you can say, well, I want something that is native to Central Texas, that needs a lot of sunshine or a little bit of sunshine, or attracts hummingbirds, or attracts songbirds, or whatever it is that you really want to have in a plant. And it will give you a list of plants that are appropriate for your goals.

Texas Wildscaping DVDs are free and available now. But quantities are limited. Go to passporttotexas.org to find out how to obtain your copy.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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To obtain your copy of the free Wildscaping DVD, send an email to:nature@tpwd.state.tx.us

 

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

A highly manicured landscape may attract the praise of neighbors, but it won’t attract much native wildlife. To do that, you need a wildscape.

Essentially, wildscaping is creating your landscape in a way that’s going to be friendly to wildlife.

Mark Klym is with wildlife diversity at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

So, we’re looking at providing food, shelter and water for the wildlife on the space that you have available using native plants. We ask for at least fifty-one percent native plants. And creating a habitat they feel comfortable with, while at the same time, keeping it comfortable for yourself and your neighbors.

For example, creating a wildlife attracting brush pile in your yard may seem a bit unruly for your tidy suburban neighborhood, but if done right, it can satisfy both man and beast.

Well, a brush pile is a wonderful thing for the wildlife to have. And if it’s properly done, it can be a very pleasing thing for us, especially when you start getting some of the field sparrows that we don’t normally see around our gardens, coming into our garden because of that brush pile. These are a wonderful resource. I’ve seen them in downtown Corpus Christi in a way that the neighbors wouldn’t even know they were there unless they looked for them.

We have links to wildscape information at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show for today …For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Habitat requirements vary between species, yet some critters make themselves at home anywhere.

Wildlife are really adaptable, and there’s going to be some wildlife that thrive in whatever type of habitat that’s provided.

Kelly Bender is an urban wildlife biologist. Even a perfectly manicured monochromatic monoculture known as lawn—will attract some wildlife.

In a typical urban area—where you’ve got really closely mowed Bermuda grass lawn, or St. Augustine lawn, and then just a few really tall mature trees and kind of nothing in the middle? That kind of habitat is really good for grackles, and pigeons, for possum and raccoon, and kind of the species that you see in a disturbed habitat.

Bender says most people don’t mind seeing those species sometimes, but not all the time.

And so what we try to do is to encourage people to create a more balanced habitat. And what I mean by that is to provide native plants that provide natural food sources—fruits, nuts, berries, leaves, etcetera—that provide a balanced source of nutrition for the animals.

This balanced habitat is called a wildscape, and we’ll tell you more about Wildscaping tomorrow.

That’s our show… visit us online at passporttotexas.org and leave a comment on our blog…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

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