Grill shed

Now I feel like I am picking my way through my 2010 Garden Project to do list. The latest victim: a grill shed. A pretty small structure but one that is useful and I think is an important visual element in the backyard.As far as the visual component- I tried to make this shed a "transitional" design, that is one that bridges two styles in my garden. Also, the grill has always kind of stood out in the garden and kind of just floated there- it needed something to ground it and tie it to the landscape and visually connect it to the other structures and elements.

I noticed after last summer when I built the tool closet and the greenhouse is that there were two styles in the garden- the painted structures with multi-paned windows and the structures made from my old cedar fence like the laundry screen , various trellises, grape arbor, benches and vegetable garden structures.

I tried to design the grill shed to blend the two styles by taking stylistic cues from the arbor, laundry screen and elements like the multi paned divided light windows from the tool closet and greenhouse. So, this is a weathered cedar structure with painted windows, and a galvanized roof like most other structures in the garden.

In the photo below, you can see the grape arbor and the cucumber trellis are repetitions of the multi-paned window forms.

By the way, all the materials for this little shed were purchased from Home Resource, a non-profit building materials reuse center, who, by the way is in the midst of a one-time fundraising campaign to move to a new, larger location to better serve the community. To donate or volunteer to help with the move go here.

Spring cleaning for the nest boxes

Spring is nearly here, though the calendar does not say it, and the groundhog evidently begs to differ. Nevertheless, some of the first signs of spring are apparent; black-capped chickadees are singing their lovey-dovey "cheeseburger"song, the smell of road-killed skunk (ahhh, spring), and a mourning dove in our yard today. Soon robins will be back, and spring will be here in earnest. Or not- it is February in Montana after all, but I digress. Anyway, I'll return to thoughts of spring...


February is an important time to think about birdhouses. The following post contains some information about nest boxes I wrote in a post about the same time last year "Bird house basics". February is when birds begin courting and looking for nesting places. Having a bird nest and raise its chicks in your yard is very gratifying for wildlife gardeners.

Since I like to keep the nest boxes empty in the winter so many birds will use them as roosts in our yard as a way to escape the cold (see here). Now is the time to clean and refill the nest boxes and it is a fun annual rite of spring (that along with connecting my rain barrels to our downspoutsm,, but that will have to wait, a while). This year the added bonus are tiny cameras I am going to install and hopefully post pictures or streaming video to this blog. This also is the first item on my 2010 to do list I can cross off, and an exciting one.

Although it is fun to see birds nest in your yard, there are many things to consider before hanging a birdhouse. Know what species of bird you want to attract and have reasonable expectations (click here for more information). In our yard, red-breasted nuthatches, black-capped chickadees, and northern flickers are the ones we are most likely to attract. Since they are cavity nesters (that is, they nest in hollow spaces in dead trees), they require box-like houses that simulate tree cavities. The reason I encourage people to cater toward cavity nesters is that these birds are having a tough time, from habitat loss, loss of snags (nesting sites), to competition from invasive birds (typically secondary cavity nesters). Although chickadees, nuthatches, and northern flickers will nest in an empty box, they prefer to excavate the cavity themselves, because this assures a clean home free of pests and predators.

Red-breasted nuthatches are the first to begin excavating their selected box- they begin excavating in early to mid February (between February 5 and 21 at my house) and they are usually complete by the first week of April (April 1-9) when they begin to fill their boxes with nesting material. Yesterday (Feb 15), I watched as a pair started excavating.

Black-capped chickadees start excavating about a month after nuthatches, with peak excavating around first week of April (from March 25- April 4), until middle April when they bring in nesting material (April 11-15). But they investigate and start defending nest sites in February.

Northern flickers are on a similar schedule as chickadees and they begin excavating in late March – early April (March 24-April 8), but they search for nesting locations in February and may do some exploratory excavating as early as the beginning of February.

As far as cleaning the boxes and refilling, below are some pictures from a chickadee box and flicker box. In the photo below, the lid on the nest box is opened to reveal the excavated cavity. Here you can see how they removed a lot of material, but still left many packed wood chips. This is why it is important to tightly compact the chips.

Here I removed the nest, and the portion of wood chips that covered the top of the nest, you can see they excavated about 1/2 of the box.Here is the nest removed form the box. Chickadees and nuthatches will add material for their nests. Whereas chickadees use animal hair, fur, and moss (this as I have mentioned is the best use for introduced squirrels), nuthatches will shred up bark into various layers of increasingly soft bedding, and they also smear sap on the outside of the hole to discourage insects and parasites from bothering the nestlings. It is really fun to watch them do this. You can help chickadees by providing fur ( for more information click here), animal hair or sphagnum moss in your yard for them. The nest is in two parts, a round egg area, and the base.Below are pictures of tree nests from past years, each are unique, based on the availability of nesting material, the age and experience of the builders, etc... They are all soft and adorable, though. You can even see a couple of eggs in one of the nests- this was from a the second clutch one year that evidently had poor germination (a little something for you gardeners).Here is the box cleaned out. This is a good time to inspect for any damage and do repairs. If there is any water penetrating into the box, fix the cause and let the box dry out before repacking. Although I build nest boxes from western red cedar, a naturally decay- and insect-resistant wood, which needs no protection from the weather, I fill my boxes with Douglas fir (typically chips from my thickness planer or jointer- see below), but you can use any species except cedar, teak, or mahogany. These species contain oils that prevent rot and insect damage but the dust can irritate nestlings. It is important to compact the chips, and I just use a piece of wood to pound it into submission. By compacting the sawdust, the birds can excavate a cavity without the rest of the filling collapsing on them.Normally that is it, but this year, I got a birthday present from my wife...mini cameras! These are the Hawkeye nature cameras (this is not a paid product endorsement, unfortunately). I removed camera shield, to take up less space, I hope this is not a fatal flaw. In adding these cameras, I did not pack the wood chips to fill the box completely as you'll see. The first step is to mount the little bracket, and my only tip here is to mount it, so it is loose enough to be able to swivel the bracket to screw the camera to the bracket. Here is the camera installed in the chickadee nest box, notice the grove cut into the side for the wire to pass.
Below is my northern flicker nest bow, and one thing to notice is that flickers just about completely remove all the wood chips for the box and they do not require any nesting material. although they may use an empty box, one benefit to having he house filled, is that is discourages use by non-target birds like house sparrows and starlings, which will not excavate. However, once the flickers excavate their nest box, often European starlings will follow. It is crucial to remove the starlings, their nests (they bring in nesting material), or otherwise dissuade them from taking the flicker’s nest box. Click here for more information about flickers and starlings.

Below, the camera installed in the flicker box. Plenty of roomHere is the completed, freshly refilled nest box with a camera, waiting to be excavated. If you look closely, you will see one of my own inventions on entrance hole- a Nesting Indicator Bar, also known as a "twig". I place these "twigs" in the entrance hole of all my nest boxes to monitor if birds are investigating the boxes. Kind of low-tech compared to the mini cameras.

Spring is near.

Help Home ReSource Move!

If you've read much of my blog, you know how much I love to shop and donate materials and time to Home ReSource. Home ReSource (HR) is a non-profit building materials reuse center in Missoula, since 2003. Right now, HR is involved in a fundraising campaign to move to a bigger, more accessible location (the old 4G's building on Russel St. near the Good Food Store). The larger location will allow HR a greater ability to serve the community- HR has drastically outgrown its current location. In addition, the new location will also enable HR to expand its service to the community through some new programs.

This fundraising campaign is a one time "ask"- HR is a self-supporting, non-profit that does not engage in annual fundraising.

Watch this brief video and Matt, Lauren (the co-founders, and co- executive directors) and Lucas (past board-president) eloquently describe the mission and the need for the move. It is a great 7-minute video that you will enjoy and I am sure you will be inspired. Hopefully inspired to contribute!

Chronicled on my blog are garden projects I have made using HR materials like my greenhouse, tool closet, soon to be completed grill shed. But I also use their materials for so many interior projects, ranging from framing to plumbing, and furniture.

Below are a couple of pictures of some recent projects like a breakfast nook and pass through, that regular blog readers would not have seen. Below is Alex, the 2009 cat of the year, and a pass through using framing, casings, windows, and hardware from HR.

HR has allowed me to do what I love, use reused and recycled materials for garden, carpentry, furniture and home projects. This is very important to me, and without HR, it would be very difficult. Unlike many similar salvage, for-profit business, HR as a non-profit organization that is invested in the community and has a strong social mission. Although the cost savings are huge from shopping at HR, to me what is more important is that I am reusing building materials and maintaining historic house parts for use in the home and garden.

There are lots of ways to stay up to date on HR; you can receive weekly email updates on materials and events, follow them on Facebook or Twitter, and by all means, shop there! I do- every week. It is my favorite store in the world, ask my wife.

Please consider contributing- even a $25 will go a along way (and you or your company will get immortalized in the GARDEN of giving- see, here is the relationship to a garden blog!). Click here to donate. I realize most of the readers of Montana Wildlife Gardener are from out of state (or even out of the country), and may never visit HR. However, the environmental and social mission of HR is fantastic and far-reaching.

2010 Garden Projects

There is always something to do or change in the garden, and this is a fun time of the year to think about planning for changes. It is also a nice time of the year to review (either through photos, or a garden journal), what worked in the garden, and what didn't- either from a design standpoint or a plant standpoint. The really fun thing about gardening is things are easy to change, and trying new things is fun; a garden is a constantly evolving extension of your lifestyle and a reflection of what you love to do.

So, here is a list of projects I hope to accomplish this winter/ spring. There will inevitably be additions, and changes, but that is part of the fun.

• New raised bed for the vegetable garden (mainly for onions) - next to grape arbor in the photo above. Move current occupants of area that will become raised bed to front yard.
• Reduce bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoreugnaria spicata) in front yard and replace with displaced plants in the area that will be occupied by the new raised bed.
• Remove one Steuben blue grape vine (we have two vines that produce over 50lbs of grapes/ year. That is a lot of jelly) and replace with a Himrod (seedless table grape). In the photo above one of the grapes is going for a ride.
• Install cameras in bird boxes and connect to Internet for live streaming bird voyeurism!
• Complete outdoor grill shed (all I need is to install the roof, so I am waiting for someone with galvanized delta rib roofing to remove theirs and donate it to Home Resource).
• Remove one section of lawn and replace with natives like hairy golden aster (Heterotheca villosa), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), showy fleabane (Erigeron speciosus) that I will mow to form a meadow. We’ll see how this works.
• Prune clematis on garage (this is a much bigger project than you would expect).
• Start a bunch of native plants in the greenhouse to add to our front yard to replace some bluebunch wheatgrass and blue flax (Linum lewisii). Soon. Very soon.
• Make a new composter?

Lots to do. Exciting.

Montana Nursery and Landscape Association Presenation

Thank you all that were at my talk, Conservation Gardening: Landscaping with Montana native plants for Montana native wildlife, at the Montana Nursery and Landscape Association's Green Expo. I hope my presentation on using native plants for wildlife was useful and inspiring. Here is a link to download my presentation from today.

2009 Cat of the Year...

Alex named 2009 Cat of the Year at Marler-Schmetterling Household!

Alex (pictured above, humbled by the honor, with June in the background overcome with joy, and cheering him on).

He won by a unanimous vote, trouncing Natalie,

Squeak

and June. Never one to take anything for granted, Alex was astonished by the honor of this award. When told of his victory, he humbly acted like he did not even know what we were saying. His lack of pretentiousness is refreshing. He does not expect much in life, probably because of his modest beginnings.

An innocent victim of an animal hoarder, Alex was surrendered to the Bitterroot Humane Society a few years ago, where he was promptly shaved and treated for various ailments. As a bald, adult cat who does not purr, he did not get much attention at the Humane Society. After seeing many of his peers get adopted during his year at the shelter, he withdrew and suffered from depression. He was placed in foster care where he received special attention. We fell in love with his picture on line and adopted him soon after.

Unflappable, Alex is the glue that keeps the cat family together: he likes all three of his housemates and does not buy in to the often petty politics and resentments so common in housecats. Beneath his calm demeanor, Alex enjoys classic games like "Chase" and "String." He is a little bit of a renaissance man. He can play Chase by himself, or with the other cats, even if they don't know they are playing a game.

Alex is a Turkish Angora cross, and we think he feels a little ostracized by our registered Himalayan (Squeak) and purebred Persian (June). However they were both rescued from shelters, too, so we don't understand why they have such snobby attitudes. He is not the biggest cat (Natalie is nearly twice his size), not the oldest cat (Squeak, at 16, is 8 years his senior), not the newest cat (June). He is not the fluffiest (Squeak), nor is he the fanciest (June and Squeak are tied). As a result, many of our friends forget about him. Nevertheless, he has important jobs- he greets everyone that comes into the house, he eats anything yet does not beg for table scraps (I hope June is reading this). We are glad to take this opportunity to recognize his achievements.
Alex has put together a remarkable year: he was our least expensive cat this year (Natalie's synthetic body wall surgery will keep her ahead in that department for a while), was a great sport about June joining the cat family, and carried out his aforementioned duties without a single complaint (it is almost as though he doesn't even know he has these jobs).

June did pretty well in the voting, too, but her litter box habits are not going to win her any prizes.

Visit your local humane society or donate to ours! http://www.myhswm.org/ in Missoula and http://www.bitterroothumane.org/ in the Bitterroot.

Backyard birding: a year in review

Having wildlife in my backyard is one the greatest rewards from native plant gardening. One easily quantifiable indicator, of the "success" of our garden is the number and diversity of species of birds that use our yard and variety of uses they have for our garden.

Although it is obviously difficult to ascribe the abundance and diversity of birds using our yard to native plant landscaping (their are no controls or replicates in this study), I look back to our previous home just five blocks away- a house we rented, and did not landscape. There we were only able to attract a few species; house sparrows, pigeons, house finches and European starlings. Our current home is in the same neighborhood, same ecotype, same proximity to natural areas, etc...but we have landscaped our yard with wildlife in mind.

Compared to the past few years, we changed little in our garden in 2009, the exception from a backyard birding standpoint is that we have been feeding less and less (click here for my feelings on this). We have cut back and stopped feeding black sunflower seeds- they tended to draw in undesirable species like house finches and squirrels (read more about squirrels here), and instead the only feed we provide is suet (click here for our conventional and unconventional feeders) and hummingbird feeders seasonally.

Here are a few highlights from 2009:

• 40 species of birds used our yard this year. In total we have had about 60 species use the yard over the last 10 years (here is the list). Some exceptions this year were red polls (haven’t seen them in a while, and not since a "cold" (read: normal) winter, blue jays (don’t know why), and many species of warblers (though I might have missed them between building our greenhouse and training for a couple of marathons).
• American robins were the first to return (Feb. 16) and the mountain chickadee (Dec. 14) was the most recent arrival.
• One new species to our backyard bird list- the Brown creeper. Though not an uncommon bird, we had never had one in our yard before.
• Black capped chickadees had two clutches. Though this happens every year, I still love it.
• Northern flickers had a clutch. The noteworthy thing about that this year was the the male was a hybrid of two morphs and the female disappeared early on, leaving him to raise the nestlings.

Here is the list of birds in 2009:

Year-round or resident bird species
American Crow
Black-billed Magpie
Black-capped Chickadee
Cedar Waxwing
Dark-eyed Junco* (*fall-spring resident)
Downy Woodpecker
House Finch
Northern Flicker
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Sharp-shinned Hawk
2009 bird arrivals to our garden
Mountain chickadee December 12
Pine siskin October 4
White crowned sparrow October 3
Yellow rumped warbler October 3
Dark eyed junco October 3
House wren August 22
Olive-sided Flycatcher August 16
Hairy Woodpecker August 1
Northern Oriole May 28
Warbling Vireo May 27
Western Wood Pewee May 24
Yellow Warbler May 24
Wilson's Warbler May 23
Western Tanager May 21
American Goldfinch May 20
Gray Catbird May 20
Chipping sparrow May 18
Lincoln's sparrow May 16
Dusky flycatcher May 14
Black-chinned hummingbird May 12
Rufous hummingbird May 10
Ruby crowned kinglet May 2
Calliope hummingbird May 2
Golden crowned kinglet April 29
Bohemian Waxwing March 27
Varied Thrush March 26
Song Sparrow March 22
Brown Creeper March 16
Mourning Dove Feb. 21
American Robin Feb. 16

Where garden projects come to life

With 10” or so of snow blanketing the garden, thoughts have turned toward projects for next year. Looking back on pictures of the backyard (like the one below)- it seems impossible that the garden will look like that again. I do enjoy the different seasons, and despite and smaller color palette, I like all the seasons in the garden. A lot of the reason I enjoy our garden so much outside the somewhat lush spring is because of all the structure and structural elements. There is always something to look at, and even poking up through the snow. Many of these structural elements are natural like the standing or fallen snags, the brush piles, hills, and even seed heads. All this structure is critical for wildlife and adds visual interest year round.

However, a lot of the structure in the garden are projects I have built, for function (like the raised beds, or greenhouse), to define space (like the clothesline screen, arbors and trellises), to benches and chairs to better enjoy the garden or nest boxes for birds to roost in the cold winters and raise their young in the spring.

Though typically in the background of many pictures, my shop (shown above, perhaps the last time it was clean!) is where I spend a lot of time building and planning things for the garden. The shop itself is a prominent element in our backyard, and it carries its share of the native plant and wildlife garden. Affixed to the south side is a red bat house, on the east side is the black capped chickadee house, and covering the north, west and east sides are trellises for climbing native western white clematis (Clematis ligusticifolia).
On the north side of the shop (not pictured) is an arbor that surrounds the overhead door, which a clematis has devoured. This dense thicket is where song sparrows and dark eyed juncos roost in the winters. The roof of the shop supplies water to the rain barrels that provide irrigation to vegetables in the raised beds in front of the shop. The south wall of the garden super-heats the raised bed in front of it where our tomatoes grow.

The shop also creates shade, and even some micro-climates in our native plant landscape. Because of the shade on the east side, we can plant a greater diversity of plants than would otherwise be possible, since we do not water any of our landscape. Some plants that are more water loving, like orange honey suckle (Lonicera ciliosa), side flowered miterwort (Mitella breweri), shrubby penstemon (Penstemon fruiticosa), violets (Viola canadensis), wild lily of the valley (Smilacina stellata) or fern species (I have no idea what species we have) thrive in the shade- a surrogate for water.
Susan, the Bike Gardener inspired me to post some pictures of my shop after seeing her beautiful woodworking shop, and our ensuing discussion on shop heating (you can see the heater aglow, below).This is where most of my gardening takes place this time of the year, and watching the wildlife using our garden from its windows.

winter in the wildlife garden

It is cold and getting colder. Temps are predicted to be around -20 degrees F (not including wind) and highs are forecasted to be in the low single digits for the next few days. And, on top of that, there is the wind. It is below zero now, and it is only getting colder. This is an important time to think about wildlife in the garden.

While working in my woodworking shop yesterday (where it was very warm, by the way), I spent a lot of time watching birds and what they were up to in the garden. It was a lot of fun and gratifying to see the wildlife garden in action. I even braved the cold and -20 degree wind-chill to take some pictures (maybe “brave” is too strong of a word).

Winter roosts
The northern flicker in the photo above has been spending the night in the nest box to escape the cold. This is the same male that excavated the nest box this past spring and raised a clutch in our yard (he has a distinguishable nape crest). Although it is important to clean and fill nest boxes annually, especially ones that you fill with nesting material (see here for information), it is important to leave these boxes empty for the winter and not refill them until February.

Brush piles, bird nesting boxes, snags and rock piles are such important features for a variety of wildlife species in the garden. These elements allow birds and other animals to escape conditions that would otherwise be inhospitable and unavailable in a "clean" yard- that is a yard with only a manicured lawn and some nicely pruned specimen trees.

Feeding
We don't feed very much, even in the winter by most standards (click here for more information). Our primary feeder is our garden- the seeds, berries, insects and others results of our garden design. For example, downy woodpeckers are spending a lot of time drilling our aspens looking for borers (click here for the fascinating, never ending borer story), and flickers are emboldened by the cold to excavate our anthill in search of cold weary (and defenseless) ant. These are the most reliable and most diverse feeders we have.

Pictured above is a song sparrow sitting on one of our fallen snags eating seeds from an aster. We do feed suet in the winter (click here for directions to build an easy one), and black sunflower seeds though not the latter for some time. Just having suet available for winter birds, seems to attract the fewest pest species.

Knowing what species are likely to visit your feeders is important in determining what to set out as food. Generic “bird food” usually end s up unused or wasted, or attracted non-native or pest species (like eastern squirrel species, European starling, house sparrows or house finches). In our yard, the primary winter birds include black capped chickadees, red breasted nuthatches, northern flickers, dark eyed juncos, downy woodpeckers, and others.

One unconventional feeder that is really effective is a natural suet feeder. Though this might look a little odd to some, a deer, elk or antelope carcass is just what lots of birds love, including chickadees, nuthatches and magpies. This is what store-bought, conventional suet feeders try to imitate. After butchering game, I will usually hang a ribcage in the backyard for birds to peck at and feed on. Yesterday as I watched, the chickadees and nuthatches never went to a typical suet feeder, but rather spent all their time feeding on the deer ribcage. Consider hanging your ribcage for the birds, or if you don’t hunt, and you are interested in adding a conversation piece/ feeder to your yard, stop by a wild game butcher, I am sure they will give you a ribcage.

Greenhouse weatherization, and germination report

The greenhouse has been doing well, especially since we've had a relatively mild fall so far. It has been a lot of fun extending the gardening season- before the greenhouse we would have been long done vegetable gardening by now. Despite the relatively mild fall I have been keeping busy with winterization tasks. I built another cold frame for the other half of the ground bed (see photo below), installed the solar pool cover for insulation (but not how I expected- read below), and activated the compost furnace.

Frankly when I got the solar pool cover I didn't really have a plan to install it. I had only read about them on blogs and greenhouse gardening forums, and it seemed like if you have a greenhouse in Zone 6 or further north, you had better get one. So I did.

To make a long story short I ended up just making storm windows from the pool cover- easily removable and installable panels for the roof (see photo above). I installed the bubbles facing out (with the pool cover installed on the inside of the greenhouse). I purchased a diamond clear 12 mil pool cover, essentially really heavy duty bubble wrap. I chose the 12 mil for a good balance between light transmission and insulation (negative relationship there, unfortunately). As far as I can tell the R value of this cover is about 3 (regular bubble wrap R value is around 1/ inch of thickness). I like this storm window design so much I think I'm going to make frames and install the shade cloth this summer the same way, rather than on the outside like I did last summer- it is really nice and easy to install and looks tidy.

I finally activated the compost furnace, read: filled it with leaves. With just leaves and some water, it is already close to 120 degrees F, and providing heat radiating up into the greenhouse. Ultimately, we are going to try for a C:N ration of about 30:1 to produce more heat. Maybe though we will get closer to 15:1. The leaves we have on hand from street trees will make up the bulk of our Carbon load (along with sawdust from my woodworking shop), and I am on the lookout for some hot manure, chicken, or llama, or something.

All the plants are growing well in the greenhouse, and already we have planted a second and third round of salad greens, and radishes. Also, a new item for the greenhouse is cat grass for our burgeoning population of elderly, slightly defective, used, house cats. Although our newest cat, June (see below, and yes this is a cat, and yes that is a real picture), likes to lick cardboard, I thought I could grow her something more enjoyable to chew. Perhaps next week we will have fresh salad greens and so will our cats.