WILDSCAPING -- FOOD: Create a place for wildlife to dine in 
your backyard ... details on Passport to Texas ... 
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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

When food shopping, we patronize markets that stock our 
favorite fare. The same is true of wildlife; they visit the 
yards that have their preferred food. Encourage wildlife 
to frequent your yard by creating a wildscape. 

"Wildscaping is creating your landscape in a way that's going to 
be friendly to wildlife."

Mark Klym oversees the wildscaping program at Texas 
Parks and Wildlife. He says a surefire way to make your 
landscape friendlier to wildlife is to cultivate vegetation 
that provides food ... such as berries and bean pods.

"Yaupon is an excellent example that can be used just about 
across the state. Mesquite is a great small mammal plant. 
American beauty berry, in berry right now, is wonderful. And 
just the other day, I saw mockingbirds using our beauty berry 
down here right in front of the office."

Some plants pull double duty, offering nectar early in the 
season, and berries or bean pods later in the season.

"When you start getting to nectar plants, yellow bells are one 
that people often forget about. And they are a wonderful nectar 
plant. Your salvias. Your coral honeysuckle, which will then 
produce a berry ... your lantana that will later produce a 
berry ... for butterflies, your milkweed that once it's pollinated 
produces a bean ... Fantastic plants. And they work for a wide 
variety of wildlife."

You'll find more information about wildscaping on the 
Texas Parks and Wildlife Website ... including a native 
plant database.

Listen to the show next week for more wildscaping tips.

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