They crash through planting beds chasing squirrels, dig holesin flower beds and pee on shrubs and perennials.

However, if you make your garden pet-friendly and put someeffort into training, your dog can become a great garden companion.

Sharing the garden with dogs

For as long as I’ve gardened, I’ve had a one-of-a-kind dog(Heinz 57 to most people).

My first dog, Teddy, was a small blonde cutie, who neverlifted hisleg on a plant in our city garden. For him, the lawn was the rightplace to go. He must have picked up the idea from watching me fuss overplants.

He also was a fantastic squirrel cop: no tulip bulb was everstolen by a squirrel while he was around.

Now that I garden in the country, I have Toby, a handsomewhitepart-husky, part-collie and part-who-knows-what, who has the discreethabit doing his toilet stuff in tall-grass areas where people don’twalk. This saves me the chore of poop scooping in the garden. Like hispredecessor, he keeps squirrels away, as well as rabbits, muskrats anddeer.

My dogs have been so rewarding that I can’t imagine gardeningwithout a dog keeping me company, so here are tips to help you makethis work for you too.

First and most important: choose your dog carefully and spendreal time training him or her! This is guaranteed to pay off in ahappierrelationship.

Dogs and gardens – safety first

When you have dogs or other pets spending time in the garden,choose alternatives to chemical lawn and garden care.

• Pest control products: Even ifyou useorganic products, keep pets out of the garden when you’re applyingthem, and then keep them away from treated areas for as long asrecommended, usually until the treated area is dry or 24 hours. Here’sa safe, organic way to controlfleas in your backyard.
• Slug baits: The older typescontained metaldehyde, which is harmful to pets if ingested. A saferalternative is slugbaits made with iron phosphate as the active ingredient.
• Fertilizers: Many organicfertilizersare made out of bone meal, blood meal or fish emulsion, which can smelllike dinner to a curious dog or cat. Store these products, as well asconventional fertilizers in plastic containers with secure lids whereyour pets won’t be able to get at them.
• Cocoa bean mulch:Compared to other species, dogs are unusually sensitive to a substancecalled theobromine found in cocoa beans, cocoa bean hulls andchocolate. If you have a dog, avoid cocoa bean mulch in the garden orkeep your dog in areas of the yard where you don’t use this mulch. Hereare other mulchingalternatives, click here.
• Sharp edged gardentools:Your dog (and people too, especially children) can get injured if youleave a rake tines up or a hoe blade up, or open pruners on the ground.

Dogs and gardens – training tips

Dogs like to be with us in the garden

Dogs like to be where people are, so when you’re in the garden, takeyour dog with you for at least part of the time.

Whenit comes to dogs and gardens, set ground rules from the start.

As with people, pet habits, once established, can be achallenge tochange. Be clear about how you want your dog to behave in the garden.

Bored dogs are most likely to get into trouble,so use walks and games to use up excess energy that might otherwise gointo destructive garden behavior.

Decide where your dog is allowed to goand whereyou don’t want him to go and be consistent. It doesn’t help if you letthe dog do what he wants when the flowerbed is weedy, but then expecthim to respect the garden when it’s all tidied up.

Encourage behavior you like anddiscourageactivities that are destructive to the garden. To keep dogs out offlowerbeds, use a verbal cue such as “out of the garden.” This worksbest if you’re actually in the garden with your dog enough that theidea becomes ingrained.

A fenced yard is a godsend fordogs and gardens.Some people use invisible fencing – a system that delivers anelectronic shock via a receiver in a special dog collar. Actual fencesare more effective because they both keep your dog in the yard andother animals out. As well, your dog can’t escape, ignoring theelectrical shock when chasing a squirrel, for example, and then gettingshocked when trying to get back into the yard.

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Let the children do a part of the garden
In case you have decided on getting the kids some gardening tools, then you could also give them a part of the
garden to cultivate and learn about plants and have some fun at the same time too. This way you can watch over
the kids while you are at your gardening too, and teach them a new hobby and something constructive. They will
also learn how to enjoy the plants and to take care of them. Apart from this you could let them have a patch
for a vegetable garden so that the kids will learn practically about the vegetables, the different stages of
their growth and the names of the parts of the fruits, vegetables and flowers.

By tools to suit your child’s age
You should buy gardening tools that will suit your child’s age and something that can be handled easily by him.
So maybe you could take your kid with you to check out and see what would be most comfortable for him. Incase
you are worried about metal tools hurting your child you could buy tools in some other material for your child. Apart from gardening alongside you this could also be a time for general knowledge improvement where you could
teach your kid a bit about the plants and the insects that visit the flowers.

Make gardening time fun time for the kids
While teaching your kids about the plants and the different insects like butterflies that hover around the
flowers, you could use some innovative methods to get them involved in gardening and learning about nature too.
Make the gardening interesting for your kid by taking pictures of their garden at regular intervals or even
every day so that they can see for themselves the way their garden has developed and how long it has taken for
the first flower to bloom. This would be a wonderful way for the kids to spend their summer months by being out
in the garden.

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Jun 1, 2010Kelly McMath

The hummingbird’s size, high energy, great agility and vibrant colouring make them fascinating to watch as they dart and hover between blooming flowers in their search for nectar. Offering some good hummingbird habitat features could help attract them to your wildlife garden.

Like all birds, the keys to attracting hummingbirds are food, water and shelter.

Keeping Them Fed

Hummingbirds burn some serious calories. They beat their wings up to 80 times a second during normal flight, and their heart rate can reach up to 1,260 beats per minute. To keep their energy level up, they feed anywhere from five to eight times every hour, up to 60 seconds each time. Providing the right food sources will attract them, and keep them coming back.

Flower Nectar and Tree Sap

Flower nectar is the hummingbird’s natural energy source. Their long tongues and beaks allow them to pull nectar from bell or trumpet-shaped flowers. As they dart from plant to plant, they act as pollinators, transfering the pollen they’ve picked up to other plants and helping to ensure future growth and bloom.

Because they have no sense of smell, hummingbirds use colour to find nectar; visiting red, purple, blue and yellow flowers first. Choose a variety of plants whose bloom times overlap to ensure a continuous supply of natural nectar throughout the growing season.

Insects and Spiders

Spiders and small insects such as mosquitoes, gnats, fruit flies, and small bees provide the protein in a hummingbird’s diet. They find them when they’re pulling nectar from flowers, pick spiders from their webs, snack on insect eggs and larvae found in tree trunks, and catch adult insects in flight.

To ensure that hummingbirds have enough insects to eat and aren’t inavertently poisoned, don’t use chemical or organic pesticides in your garden.

Growing a variety of small-flowering native plants such as goldenrod, aster or pearly everlasting will attract different insects as food for hummingbirds.

Artificial Feeders

If natural food sources for hummingbirds are running low, you can supplement by adding and maintaining a feeder or two.

To make your own hummingbird syrup, mix one part white sugar to four parts water. Boil the water for one to two minutes to reduce chlorine and kill any bacteria or mold spores that may be present, then add the sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove the mixture from the heat and allow it to cool thoroughly. Fill your feeder and store any excess in the fridge for up to three or four weeks.

Empty, clean and refill your feeder every couple of days to prevent the syrup from going moldy or fermenting and to encourage hummingbirds to keep coming back.

Do not use honey, artificial sweeteners or food colouring in your feeder. Honey may cause a tongue fungus, and artificial sweeteners do not provide the energy hummingbirds need. Food colouring offers no benefit to attracting or nourishing hummingbirds and only adds chemicals to their diet.

Water

As with all birds, hummingbirds need a source of fresh water. Planting native trees and shrubs with large leaves such as maples, tulip trees and basswood will give them a place to find water for bathing and drinking.

Shelter

Hummingbirds are accustomed to woodland living so include trees, shrubs, and vines as well as flowering plants in your garden. Allow space for them to hover among the blooms. Trees such as birch or maple may invite sapsuckers, whose holes are sometimes visited by hummingbirds looking for any remaining sap or insects the holes attract.

Nesting

Hummingbird nests can be difficult to spot, but with the right circumstances and right conditions, hummingbirds will nest in gardens. They look for broadleaf trees where the average temperature is less than 35 degrees Celsius, or 96 degrees Fahrenheit, and usually build out of the wind, anywhere from one to 15 metres above ground. This helps ensure that the tiny nest is well hidden, is not accidently blown away in harsh winds, and that extreme heat does not “cook” their eggs and kill the embryos.

Hummingbirds use plant down such as milkweed, thistle, cattail, willow and fireweed down, as well as animal hair, to line their nests. Spiderwebs bind the little cup-shaped nest together and to branches, and provide insulation for the very tiny babies. Lichen and bud scales from fir, pine, spruce or hemlock trees on the outside of the nest help camouflage it from predators.

The right environment will draw hummingbirds to your garden and just as they bring pleasure, so does the sight of a fluttering or resting butterfly.

Sources:

Canadian Wildlife Federation

Attracting Hummingbirds to Your Wildlife Garden

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