Providing Water Year-round

As the cold weather approaches, I thought I'd do a blog on providing water year-round to wildlife.  For my water elements, such as the pond and a hanging birdbath, YardMap asks whether you provide water year-round or seasonally.


Water is important for animals year-round for drinking and for grooming.  I keep my pond running except during the very coldest weather when it would damage the pump.  As long as there is enough liquid water to keep circulating, I keep it on.


The hanging birdbath freezes at night during the winter, so just this morning, I brought out the heated birdbath and a long orange extension cord.  I filled the heated birdbath and tonight will plug it in, since we are expecting freezing weather.  I'll take the hanging birdbath down and store it indoors during the winter.


Below is a photo of both the green hanging birdbath on the left and the heated grey birdbath sitting in a circular frame attached to the railing of the deck.  You should see the birds on a snowy day when everything else is frozen.  They flock to the heated birdbath like humans do to a hot spring!  It's great entertainment on a snowy day.

Screenshot of my yard with YardMap

It's hard to convey to someone what you're doing with YardMap without them actually being able to see your map.  So, today, I took a screenshot of my map and have inserted it below.  As you can see, the yard is diamond-shaped. One third of the acre lot consists of the house, the lawn areas (shown in light green) and all the garden bed areas with shrubs and perennials(shown in purple).  The other two-thirds of the acre consist of the forested area, which is seen in dark green on the right side of the map below.  You can also see my pond as the blue circle to the left of the wooded area.

I can zoom in on the map and have added the elements mentioned in a previous post, such as a bird bath, a compost bin, a rain barrel and a large silver maple in the front yard.  But, the screenshot above is too small a scale for you to see these elements.


There is also a horseshoe-shaped trail that circles through the woods, so that we can easily access most of the property. Another short, dead-end trail enters from the center of the lawn area and goes to a hammock suspended between two sturdy tulip trees.  Along this trail, I have planted some native spring ephemerals such as Bloodroot, May Apple, Celandine Poppy, Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Wild Ginger.  I also have Partridge Berry growing alongside the trail.


My activity this past weekend with YardMap was to list some of the species of plants in the garden beds by common and scientific name.  There is no specific area where you can do this, so I included it in the Comments section of each garden bed. 


At this time of year, there are no longer any plants in bloom.  But, only two weeks ago, in late November, I had a few Obedient Plants (Physostegia virginiana) in bloom.  Why so late?  Because they were on the south-facing side of the house and close to the shelter of the house. Just as the real estate agents always say, "Location, location, location."