By Ellen Zunon

GUILDERLAND — I have tooth marks on my sedum. But not to worry — it’s a garden plant, not a body part. Sedum is a succulent perennial with moist green leaves, perfect for a salad, or so must the deer think that make nightly visits to my domain, dining on rhododendron and snacking on sedum. In any case, it is not a plant meant for human consumption.

Ours is a corner lot, where we have our own forest in miniature, with white pine, Norway maple, hemlock, oak, and mulberry. We don’t have much of a lawn because it is difficult to maintain a green lawn in the area where I live with the sandy soil of the Pine Bush underfoot.

So I have compromised by reducing the size of my lawn and allowing some wildflowers to move in alongside the perennials, trees, and shrubs. Including the trees, flowers, shrubs (and weeds!), I’ve counted a total of 85 different plant species on our property.

In fact, we have so many kinds of plants that our yard has recently been designated a Certified Wildlife Habitat site by the National Wildlife Federation. This is a program that encourages homeowners to create biodiverse havens for wildlife, using native plants and reducing the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

The program was started in 1973 when National Wildlife magazine published an article encouraging people to garden in a more natural way, with wildlife in mind. There was such an overwhelming response to the article, that the National Wildlife Federation began the backyard habitat program to promote the approach described in the article, and to educate the public about the benefits of creating and restoring natural landscapes.

Preserving the gene pool of native species

In order to qualify for the program, your backyard habitat must contain four elements:

— 1) Food sources for wildlife, such as native plants, seeds, berries, nectar;

— 2) A source of water, such as a birdbath or pond;

— 3) Places for cover: a thicket, rockpile or birdhouse; and

— 4) Places for wildlife to raise their young, such as dense shrubs, vegetation, or a nesting box.

You should also be able to cite what sustainable gardening practices you use to help conserve natural resources. These might be as complex as creating a vegetative buffer zone around your pond or as simple as mulching around your shrubs. And, of course, you must reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Last year, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the National Wildlife Federation, the foundation’s goal was to achieve a total of 70,000 certified habitats. They must have succeeded, because my certificate is number 73333. In fact, they are now aiming for 100,000 habitat sites.

The program is promoted on inserts in National Wildlife, the NWF’s monthly magazine, and on its interactive website, www.nfw.org. You can also find gardening tips on the website, view photographs of other homeowners’ habitats, search a database of native plants and apply to the habitat program online. There is a $15 application fee, which includes a subscription to National Wildlife magazine.

Janet Marinelli, director of publishing at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, and fellow habitat owner, emphasizes the importance of backyard habitats in an article in the May 2006 issue of National Wildlife magazine. According to Marinelli, as wilderness areas shrink and backyard acreage increases, home landscapers play an increasingly important ecological role.

Natural areas become more isolated from each other, causing inbreeding, which threatens genetic diversity. Backyard habitats such as mine help to preserve the gene pool of native species.

Habitat owners are asked to reduce the use of herbicides because these chemicals not only destroy native plant species in backyards, but also move up the food chain as songbirds eat insects that have been contaminated. Overuse of garden pesticides has been cited as a factor in the dwindling population of North American songbirds.

Home to birds and butterflies

Our habitat is only about a third of an acre, but it provides food, water, and shelter for a variety of songbirds, small mammals and butterflies.

I have a birdbath, but don’t need a birdfeeder to attract cardinals, chickadees, bluejays, hummingbirds, and robins; the flowers and trees do the job. One summer a family of baby rabbits grew up sheltered by the large leaves of our hosta, and now a brown toad has taken up residence near their spot. As I weed the euonymus, a red-tailed hawk calls out overhead.

We also have a number of nocturnal visitors, such as fox, deer, and opossum, and we often awaken at night wondering which one of them has set off the motion-sensitive lights this time. One night, it was an owl hooting in the pine trees. Most often, it is the deer.

I have mixed feelings about the deer, since the ticks they may carry transmit Lyme disease. I have learned to protect myself by wearing long sleeves and pants while gardening, and to check myself for ticks at the end of the day.

I can’t take all the credit for the diversity of my garden, since a great many of the plants that flourish in my habitat were planted by the previous owners of my property. In fact, it was the garden that sold me on the property, as much as the house.

Over the last few years, some of the original plants have died out, so I have added a few new ones — my herb garden, for example, from which I can pluck fresh rosemary, basil, thyme, and mint to flavor my sauces and salads. And, since I have cut back on the use of herbicides, the number of native species in the yard has also grown spontaneously.

By late September, most of the perennials have finished blooming and have begun to die down, and the grass is no longer as green as it was earlier in the season. I observe that the rhododendron has crowded out the butterfly weed, and the daylilies have obliterated the bee balm and the evening primrose.
A little judicious wielding of the clippers here and there on the overgrown rhododendron branches will allow more breathing space for the butterfly weed to flourish next summer. Incidentally, butterfly weed, as its name suggests, is one of those plants that started out as a wildflower, but that people now cultivate in their perennial gardens. Not all "weeds" have been that lucky. Its bright orange blossoms are not my favorite color, but it attracts butterflies and hummingbirds, so who am I to say it’s not pretty"

Winter on the way

In a couple of months, the garden will lie dormant under a blanket of snow, but I will be waiting all winter to see what new surprise will emerge from the ground next spring. Each year, I seem to make a new discovery. One year it was a Japanese maple near the fence; another a scrawny lilac that produced one fragrant bloom; another, a rare feverfew; and this year, a crop of Indian pipe emerging from a blanket of decaying leaves under the canopy of the woods.

Later, watching from my kitchen window, I observe that I have not been the only one getting ready for winter. In early fall, small creatures are on the move in the garden.

The chipmunks are gathering provisions for the winter. We see them scurry across the patio - from the woods to the flowerbeds, their cheeks bulging with seeds or nuts. Squirrels, too, eat themselves silly and bury plenty of acorns.

By the birdbath, jays shriek and doves coo, seeming to egg on their furry neighbors. I picture the chipmunk burrows as those of Badger and Mole in The Wind in The Willows. I can clearly see a front and back door a few feet apart along the edge of the perennial bed, and wonder how deep the tunnels go under the lawn and woods. A mole has made a burrow under the daylilies, so now I know firsthand what a molehill looks like, more of a mound than a hill. Even after I have thinned them out, the lilies are so profuse that the mole can’t do them much harm.

Over all, a warm orange globe hangs low in the sky. Soon the little creatures will overwinter in their burrows, waking now and then to snack on their provisions, and a cleansing frost will freeze the deer ticks, rendering them harmless until a potential new crop arrives with the deer next spring.