Texas Wildscapes: Gardening For Wildlife
By Bender, Kelly Conrad '92

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Texas Wildscapes:
Gardening for Wildlife
by Noreen Damude and Kelly Conrad Bender '92

Gardening for the Nature Lover
A garden without life is like a day without sunshine! Gardeners both of the city and the countryside yearn to get back to nature and to experience the sights and sounds of wildlife. What happiness can compare to watching feisty hummingbirds zoom from flower to flower, jaunty chickadees snatch seeds from a feeder, and dazzling butterflies tilt lazily through the air? The expansive, well-manicured lawns so prevalent in our culture provide little of what these beautiful and beneficial creatures...

We yearn to get back to nature and to experience the sights and sounds of species other than our own. Watching hummingbirds flitter from flower to flower, chickadees and titmice snatch seeds from a feeder, and dazzling butterflies tilt lazily through the air as they scout for food is indeed satisfying to the soul. To observe such wonders, however, we need to entice the presence of the creatures that call these marvels into existence. Expansive, well-manicured yards with only the occasional tall tree do not support a great diversity of wildlife. Multiple layers of vegetation and native grasses with varied spacing between patches provide the heterogeneity that different species of wildlife require, while bringing pleasure to the eye.

This book tells you how and what to plant to provide food and shelter for native wildlife. Most important, it does so by furnishing lists of plants appropriate to the specific region of Texas you live in. (Texas is a big state, and its plant and animal life changes considerably as you go north and south, or east and west.)

Beautiful color photographs of different kinds of gardens and the many kinds of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates that can be attracted to them are generously displayed throughout the informative text.

Finally, your backyard can also become a certified Official Texas Wildscape Site with its own weatherproof sign and a personalized certificate for you, sent by Texas Parks and Wildlife. All you need to do is to fill out the form provided at the end of the book.

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The author would like readers to know that an index for this book is now available by request at mailto:kellybender@tpwd.state.tx.us. Please provide a name and postal or e-mail address when requesting a copy.