January 2026: Taking Care of Wildlife in Our Gardens Monthly Challenge.

 

Welcome to the 2026 Taking Care of Wildlife in Our Gardens Monthly Challenge. Taking care of nature has been the overarching theme of this blog for a very long time. It's what I do as a gardener, it's what I write about and it's what I encourage all of you to do. January 2026 will be the start of the fifth year of the taking care of nature challenges and it's even more relevant in the midst of the many challenges facing wildlife today.

Wildlife is facing major threats from habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, pollution, overexploitation (poaching/overhunting), the effects of invasive species, disease, and human-wildlife conflict. Although the population of earth isn't growing as fast as it once was there are still over 70million people added to our world populations each year. The more crowded we get the more we continue with our unsustainable practices that disrupt ecosystems and consequently push species towards extinction. 

Radnor Lake in winter

 What can we do? I suggest we start taking care of wildlife.There any number of ways we can do this and the Taking Care of Wildlife in Our Gardens Challenge is one I especially recommend.

What the challenge is all about!

The first part of this challenge is to do something or even lots of things each month that supports nature. 

• Be it for the critters living or visiting our gardens, 
• volunteering at a nature center or 
• joining an advocacy group. 
• Adding native wildflowers, shrubs and trees that make sense for our ecoregion is a good place to start or continue (as the case may be).
• Activities that increase our knowledge of the natural world are equally as valuable. 
• Helping others learn about nature is included. 
• Golly gee whiz, there are so many things you can do. 

The second part of the challenge is to post about it somewhere: Your blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even your neighborhood listserve. Share your activities with everyone. Wouldn't an article in the local paper be a coup for nature!  

Why post it? Because positive publicity is needed to educate our friends, neighbors and communities about how important even the smallest changes we make as gardeners/citizens can be for pollinators, birds, insects and mammals, including humans, that live all around us. 

Why now? Our neighborhoods are changing. Almost everyday in my own neighborhood an older home along with many (if not all) of the mature oak, hickory, maple, Eastern cedar, hackberry and other trees are cut down. Insects, birds, even mammals lose their home site and food supplies when trees are lost. During construction soil is compacted by bulldozers, trucks and piles of debris causing runoff; surface runoff that can carry pollution to streams and rivers. It's extremely important that information about the role trees play in our ecosystem is shared. Trees contribute to their environment by providing oxygen, improving air quality, climate amelioration, conserving water, preserving soil, and supporting wildlife.

The "bee lawns" in my neighborhood that are composed of Claytonia, Salvia lyrata, Ruellia humilis, fleabane, Western Daisy, Violets, self-heal, clovers, native grasses  and sedges are disappearing. Instead, they're sodded with non-native grasses. These monoculture turf lawns contribute nothing environmentally.  Here's what we lose when our diverse lawns are replaced with pristine turf grass:

 

• Gone are the lightening bugs.
• Gone are the ground dwelling/nesting native bees.
• Gone is the habitat for insects, spiders and other critters. 
• Gone is plant diversity. 
• Gone are trees that provided for hundreds of moths, butterflies and other insects.
• Gone are the nesting sites for woodpeckers, hummingbirds, Chickadees and other birds. 
• Gone is a healthy foodweb.
  

 It breaks my heart. 

We can't stop the progmess, but, maybe we can make a lot of educational noise and help all our neighbors, new and old, see the value in providing for critters and ultimately helping the environment.

A gardener can hope! 

Here's 5 things that might inspire you this month.

• Join a local WildOnes. They offer fabulous webinars, opportunities to volunteer, garden tours and monthly meetings where you can meet and chat with other members. Here's a link to my local chapter, Middle Tennessee WildOnes. You can join the national chapter and help form a local chapter where you live!

• Allow a fallen tree to remain in the garden. Limbs on the ground are a perfect shelter for small animals such as rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels and a habitat for beetles, termites and other insects. 

  
• Join your state native plant society (Tennessee Native Plant Society)
• Take an online course on designing with native plants. Winter is a great time to begin planning changes in your garden that support wildlife.
• Take a walk in your neighborhood and observe nature. To quote Joanna Brichetto in Sidewalk Nature "Look Around. Nature is here, is us, our driveways, our parks, and parking lots.

Thanks for reading and I hope you feel inspired to take up the challenge.

I'd love for you to comment and share your thoughts, your frustrations, your successes in your garden or within your community. Please feel free to suggest topics and I hope you know that any input or feedback you care to offer is greatly appreciated. 

May this be the start of a hope filled year for all of us. Happy New Year.

xoxogail

Need more activities? Here's an incomplete list of things you might consider doing or changing in your garden, and things you can do for and/or in your community. But don't limit yourself to my list, make your own list or check out the internet for ideas.

 

Buy the best wildflower, butterfly and bird id books for your state.

Read nature books to your children and grandchildren. Buy them nature books.

Get in the garden with your children and grandchildren.

Give nature books as baby shower gifts (Nature books for infants and toddlers)

Shrink your lawn and make your planting beds larger.

Plant your favorite native perennials and shrubs. Leave them standing after they've gone to seed to continue to provide for wildlife. What you plant in your yard makes a difference to wildlife. I garden for wildlife so every tree, shrub and plant is chosen with wildlife in mind.

 

Plant more natives and then consider planting even more. "A typical suburban landscape contains only 20-30% native plant species. Try reversing that trend in your own landscape by using 70-80% native species." (source) 

Plant for bloom from late spring to early winter. Bees are most active from February to November (longer in mild climates) late winter blooming Hamamelis vernalis and the earliest spring ephemerals (like the toothworts, hepaticas, spring beauties, and False rue-anemeone) are perfect plants for a variety of pollinators.

Commit to never, ever, ever, ever using pesticides in the garden.

Stay away from native plant hybrids and cultivars that are double flowered. They are sterile and have no pollen or nectar for insects and no seeds for the birds. If possible plant “true open-pollinated native wildflowers”

If you want to garden for wildlife and pollinators, don't let lack of space stop you! Plant your favorite wildflowers in large containers. You just might have the prairie or woodland garden you've always wanted...in a pot!
 
Create a water feature. Provide water year round that is accessible to birds, bees and other critters.

Make a rain garden in low spots to collect and mitigate runoff.

Show some soil! Our native ground nesting bees nest in bare soil, so don't mulch every square inch of your garden. 

Get rid of the plastic weed barriers in your garden, it's not good for anything.

Invite bugs into your garden. Plant annuals that attract beneficial bugs.

 

Learn to tolerate damaged plants. Imperfection is the new perfect.

Don't be in a rush to clean up the fall garden. Leave plant stalks and seed heads standing all winter. Leave those fallen leaves or as many as you can tolerate! Insects over winter in the fallen and decaying leaves. Leave a layer of leaves as a soft landing material under trees for moths and butterflies to over winter. Many caterpillars drop to the ground from the trees in the fall and need a soft landing site and a place to live over the winter.

Allow a fallen tree to remain in the garden. Limbs on the ground are a perfect shelter for small animals such as rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels and a habitat for beetles, termites and other insects.

Make a brush pile. Stack fallen brush, cut tree limbs, broken pots for ground beetles. Ground beetles are excellent at eating "bad bugs". Bugs are also good bird, toad and small critter food. 

Rethink what you consider a pest. Lots of good bugs eat aphids. Spiders are important predators and they're great bird food!

Add nesting boxes for birds. 

Turn off your yard up-lighting, eave lights and porch lights after 11pm. This is important for nocturnal critters including mammals, snakes, insects, bats, birds (especially during migration). (Birdcast suggestions)

Plant shrubs and small trees that provide berries and nuts.

Keep a nature journal: You can observe visitors to your water feature, make note of when they visit. Notice which flowers attract the most pollinators and which ones are just pretty faces. 

Join your state native plant society (Tennessee Native Plant Society)

Join WildOnes even if there's no local group you can join the national organization.  (Middle Tennessee WildOnes)

Support your local native plant sellers. (GroWild in middle Tennessee, Overhill Gardens in east Tennessee,  Resource Guide TN Native Plant Society)

Encourage your local garden clubs to offer native plant talks.

If your garden club has a plant sale encourage them to sell more native plants.

Get trained as a naturalist (Tennessee Naturalist Program. Almost every state has their own Master Naturalist training program

Take an online course on tree, fungi and wildflower id. 

Take an online course on designing with native plants.

Take a walk in your neighborhood and observe nature. To quote Joanna Brichetto in Sidewalk Nature "Look Around. Nature is here, is us, our driveways, our baseboards, parks, and parking lots."

Read! There are hundreds of books on gardening for wildlife, the environment, and rewilding our world. There are delightful blogs with wonderful and informative articles.

If you are already gardening with wildlife in mind then add a few signs that help educate your neighbors. (Xerces Society, Pollinator Partnership)

Join the Xerces Society.

Set up an information station where neighbors can pick up brochures about your garden and other info. 

Get certified (National Wildlife Federation, check to see what your state offers)

Support trees by joining the effort to make sure developers don't remove more trees than are necessary for their project. Work to make sure there are tree removal permits and that they are actually enforced in your community.

 

 

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Botany Vocabulary Word of the Day

Ephemeral: short lived

Cardamine concatenata

Spring in Middle Tennessee might be its best season. Beautiful ephemeral wildflowers begin emerging from the leaf litter in February. Trillium, Spring beauty, Toothworts, False Rue anemone, Rue anemone, Dutchman's Breeches, Troutlily, Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), Virginia Bluebells and Hepatica are a few of the ephemerals that can be seen in nearby parks and woodlands.

Found throughout the eastern United States and Canada, spring ephemerals thrive on the floor of rich, undisturbed woodlands. They are also very happy in the right garden setting. Most plants are available from brick and mortar native plant nurseries and the internet, so please don't dig them from woodlands, leave them for other critters to enjoy.

The solitary bee, Andrena erigeniae  specializes on Spring Beauties/Claytonia virginica

These remarkable and fragile beauties emerge early each spring, taking advantage of the rich, moist soil and full sunlight streaming through the bare branches of the deciduous trees. In the short period of time before the tree canopy emerges and blocks the sunlight they must grow, leaf-out, flower, be pollinated and produce seeds. This is called the epigeous or above ground growth phase. Once they fade they enter the hypogeous, or below ground growth phase when roots and buds are busy developing.

Freezes and frosts don't faze them. They grow very low to the sun warmed soil and some, even have hairy leaves/stems or leaves that wrap around the emerging buds, trapping warm air that keeps them from freezing.

 Enemion biternatum/False Rue anemone

They're a vital food source for pollinators at a time when there is little food available. Honeybees, bumbles, carpenter bees, flies and beetles seek out their pollen and/or nectar and ants feed on the elaiosome that surrounds some seeds. Their thick, fleshy, nutrient and carbohydrate rich corms, roots and tubers are especially attractive to white footed mice, chipmunks and voles.

So get out there and enjoy them while you can! It's already getting warm in Nashville and they'll be retreating underground before you know it.

xoxogail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Wildflower Wednesday 2011 Roundup!

Hypericum frondosum is still hypercolored and River Oats is still golden.

Welcome to the Wildflower Wednesday December Roundup!  There's still color in the garden and we thank the St Johns wort and River Oats for brightening the gray days.  Gardening in the Middle South is a treat, we have four seasons, but our winter is  mercifully short and spring and autumn make up for the steamy hot summer weather.  Soon the  earliest ephemerals will bud and then the gloriously long  bloom of  wildflowers will begin.

Without further ado here are the best and brightest of Clay and Limestone's 2011 wildflowers.

January~The Toothworts

Cardamine concatenata~ Cutleaf Toothwort

 I love this charming member of the mustard family! All flowers of this family have 4  petals and the fruit is often in a capsule form.

February~The Cliff Dwellers:Heucheras

Heuchera americana

Heucheras are an international favorite thanks to a exciting new cultivars  that have been introduced  during the last 15 or so years. If you garden in the south you might want to look for any with H villosa in the parentage, they can take heat and humidity.  The key to success with any coral bell is drainage. They can be grown in almost anywhere, just give them good drainage and they'll be in your garden for a long time.


March~Yellowroot 

Xanthorhiza simplicissima

I love the tiny, delicate purplish flowers that bloom in the spring and the foliage that has been described as resembling both astilbes and celery. But, good looks was only one of the reasons it came to live in my garden.  It has high wildlife value and can take the difficult conditions.

 April~A Week Long Wildflower Celebration April is a happy blooming month. My garden is alive with so many wildflowers, bulbs and a few well chosen exotics. Cumberland Rosemary,  Geranium maculatum 'Espresso', Senecio aureus,  Phlox divaricata are a few of the ones I highlighted this past year. .

Hypoxis hirsuta

  May~Favorite Colonizing Wildflowers

Oenothera fruticosa is just one of the many colonizing wildflowers

 Colonizing wildflowers are just what I love.  If you aren't afraid of ground covering beauties than try a few from this post.

June~Pollinators and Their Friends

Doesn't this picture say it all! For more bees and butterflies  follow the link.

July~Phloxy Ladies and Gents (Summer Phlox)

It's possible that there may be a photo of PPPP in this one!


August~Partridge Pea

I did find a seed source for this colonizer!Hoping it will get established here!  I've got a few  places that need dramatic foliage and bright flowers.

September~Plant More Natives

Salvia azurea with a bee-lining carpenter bee

 That's my rallying cry!

October~Porteranthus stipulatus

Porteranthus stipulatus

One of my favorite of the fall pretties!

 November~A Week Long Celebration

Hamamelis virginiana

Thank goodness for the last of the ex-asters, the native grasses and witch hazels or our fall gardens would be pretty shades of brown!

My dear friends, Thank you for planting more wildflowers, thank you for taking care of the bees and all the  pollinators, thank you for tolerating pesky wildlife,  and thank you for another year of your friendship, visits, comments and joining me in celebrating wildflowers all over this great big wonderful world. You are the best and having you in my life has enriched it beyond measure.


xxoogail


Please comment and add your link to Mr Linky.


Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone."

Clay and Limestone's Spring Ephemerals

Neither rain, nor cold, or even more rain, can stop the delightful harbingers of springtime that are blooming all over Clay and Limestone. The delicate white or pinkish flowers of ephemerals bloom early in spring, set seed, then disappear until the next spring. I love them all~But, please, don't ask me to choose which one is my favorite. No way, not now, not ever, would I be able to choose.

Could you?

Claytonia virginica or Spring Beauty

Would you choose the candy striped Spring Beauty? Claytonia virginica's flowers are about the size of a dime with five petals that spread wide as the sun warms them. From a distance, the flowers appear white, but, each petal is suffused with a delicate network of pastel pink veins. Those pink veins are nectar guides. Spring Beauties are pollinated by over 100 species of insects. That's a lot of bees, flies and other winged creatures relying on nectar and pollen. That makes them an important early food source.

Hepatica acutiloba or Sharp lobed hepatica

Does your taste run to hepaticas? Another, small and delightful white flower that leans toward pink. It appears to emerge leafless from the soil, but, if you look closely you'll see last summer's deep purple brown, heart shaped leaf nearby. Be careful when you're cleaning them up each fall~those leaves are an important food source for the plant all winter. Small bees collect pollen, while Syrphid flies and other flies feed on the pollen. Bee visitors include honeybees, Small Carpenter bees, Andrenid bees, and Halictid bees.

Dentaria laciniata or Cut-leaved toothwort

Perhaps, you would choose the perfumed flowers of Cut-leaved toothwort! This is a common plant in Middle Tennessee, but that would never detract from its charm. If you have one plant, you will soon have more. It spreads by rhizome and seed~But, don't be afraid...It's an ephemeral and will disappear after setting seed. Look for honey bees, bumblebees, Mason bees, Cuckoo bees, Miner bees, Halictid bees, and Andrenid bees.

Isopyrum/Enemion biternatum or False rue anemone

False rue anemone is a lovely ground cover with columbine like leaves and the sweetest delicate white flower that is often confused with Rue anemones ( Thalictrum thalictroides). This is another little spring flower that makes pollen, but, no nectar. Small bees and flies visit to collect or feed on the pollen.

Erigenia bulbosa or Harbinger-of-Spring

Harbinger-of-Spring is the earliest and smallest of the spring flowers to bloom in my garden. The pure white flowers and chocolate colored anthers contrast beautifully and, are surely, the reason for one of the common names, "Pepper and Salt". Little Carpenter bees, Mason bees, and flower flies visit for nectar. It grows in rich moist woodlands.

What do you think is emerging!

So, tell me my friends~Could you choose a favorite among these pretties?

xxoogail

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011.This work protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

Wildflower Wednesday~The Toothworts

Cardamine concatenata~ Cutleaf Toothwort

Cutleaf Toothwort was the first wildflower to introduce itself to me  at  Clay and Limestone.   It was my first spring in the house  and I spent as much time as I could manage to carve away from my busy life as a wife, mother and a part time therapist in the garden.

I remember being charmed by the nodding bell flowers on that  long ago spring morning. It was blooming  here and there on the edges of the then grassy area. Growing near it were other wildflowers~Columbines, Trillium, Dutchmen's Breeches  and Spring Beauty.   It's been more then  25 years and my spirits still lift  when I see the first spring blooms of the toothworts.

Cardamine diphylla~Broadleaf Toothwort offers winter color

 A few years ago I added  Broadleaf Toothwort (Cardamine diphylla) to the woodland garden. It's  evergreen and the leaves persist after the flower fades and goes to seed.  Both toothwort's native range is the Eastern United States  and parts of Canada.   It is found in moist woodlands usually in edge habitats.  If it's happy you can plan on a small colony of pretty flowers every spring. It will spread by root and seed.  But, don't worry, it isn't aggressive; it's just charming.

If you look closely a the flowers of toothwort~You can see their mustard family four petaled, pink or white cross shaped flowers. The nectar of the flowers attracts  honey bees, bumblebees, Mason bees, Cuckoo bees (Nomadine), Miner bees, Green Metallic Bees and other  Halictid bees, and Andrenid bees.  You know that makes me happy!
xxoogail

 Welcome to Clay and Limestone's Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Please add your url to Mr Linky and leave a comment.

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.