Easy and impactful ways to create a habitat garden this spring with simple tips like leaving plant litter, letting logs lie, and embracing native plants, to boost biodiversity. 

It’s the first week of April, which means many of us are heading into our gardens to prepare for spring blooms, and looking for ways to make a difference for biodiversity right at home. But before you start collecting the fallen branches and raking the leaf litter you might want to consider how these “messy” elements provide critical food, shelter, and nutrients to local wildlife!

Wildlife habitat gardens are growing in popularity as a hope filled response to the climate crisis. Creating a vibrant life-supporting space in your yard or on our balconies might seem like it’s a lot of work – but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, one of the simplest things you can do this spring is skip the cleanup. Choosing to embrace a wilder, more natural approach to gardening, can help create a haven for birds, pollinators, and insects. There are plenty of great garden practices out there, but this post focuses on three easy and impactful ways you can boost biodiversity this month, taken from our Gardening for Biodiversity Booklets. If you’re looking for more of our favorite tips to support wildlife at home, download the full set for free! Developed with our partners at the Ecological Design Lab, Nature Canada, and FLAP Canada, these booklets are filled with practical, easy ways to turn your garden or balcony into a biodiversity hotspot.

Leave the Leaves

Plant litter comes in many forms including fallen dead leaves, tree bark, needles and twigs. Decomposing plant litter is an important component of soil health, nutrient cycling and biodiversity. Not raking the leaves or other plant litter in your garden or yard supports a variety of species who overwinter in them, from earthworms, butterflies, and moths, to caterpillars, slugs, spiders, beetles and more. Outside of supporting biodiversity in your garden and attracting beneficial insects, you will save time and money, and reduce pollution by not using a leaf blower.

Let the Logs Lie

Similar to the benefit of leaving plant litter in your garden through the winter time, the same positive impacts to biodiversity are seen when keeping snags, standing logs and dead branches in the garden. This is because many beneficial species are on the search for dead wood, which is typically removed from urban settings, including cavity nesting birds and mammals, beetles, fungi, other plants and beneficial insects. Furthermore snags and other decaying wood positively impact soil health, keeping your garden sustainable for years to come.

Plant Native and Invite Beneficial Insects

There are countless beneficial insects for our garden, with the most commonly recognized being those which are considered pollinators (bees, butterflies, spiders, moths, and so on). In addition to pollination, insects can be beneficial to our garden, for a variety of other reasons including for pest control, seed dispersal, and decomposition.

The way to attract these beneficial insects largely depends on which insect you are trying to attract. The Horticulture for Home Gardens’ Beneficial Insects Guide highlights over 10 insects common in Canadian gardens, and suggests how to attract them. Likewise, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has published a Beneficial Insects Guide, which lists common beneficial insects for healthy yards and their shelter requirements to attract them, at the different stages of life. Generally, it is always best to avoid chemical pesticides, and plant a diverse range of flowers, especially native plant species and herbs (e.g., dill, cilantro, basil, etc.), as the most powerful way of attracting beneficial insects. Other practices such as providing shallow water sources, rocks, and mulching to habit microorganisms have also proven effective.

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