I am considering habitat gardening when I decide what to do for fall cleanup. Yep, I know, it's winter but we're having some unseasonably warm weather. I didn't do much fall cleanup and I'm feeling marginally strong so it seems like a good time to decide what I want to do. I definately want to pull dead weeds out of my rose beds. That one is easy. I want to shift some more of the suplus leaves from my front garden to my back garden. My main leaf shift has been from the driveway which was enough for some of my back garden pathways but I have a ways to go. I'm not sure what to do about the leaves in the bushes. If
I don't get them out before spring nesting, I can't do it. The birds often build nests in areas where the leaves add to the cover and I can't risk disturbing a nest in the spring. I was surprised when I got my wreath off the hook against my house where the deck is to find an old nest on the back side. I'll repriese my photo of the baby bird here because I wonder if that was the bird that was nurtured in the nest. Probably not. It was probably a much smaller bird. Last year's wreath was my first sort of fake one. It had dried greenery and berries so it wasn't exactly fake but it wasn't fresh either. After Christmas I hung it on the hooks in the back and a bird nested on the back side where I couldn't see it. This year I got the wreath down to put on my front door and added fresh greenery and red berries from my holly bushes to give it a face lift. When I was brushing off the leaves and other materials that I assumed had fallen from the roof onto the wreath, I came across a perfect little nest but fortunately it was clearly old and had done it's duty of protection already. I wish I knew more about fungus. Some of my mushrooms look like the ones you pay a fortune for in the grocery story and I love mushrooms. However, I'm not brave enough to try to harvest the ones that volunteer on the old base of oak tree trunks. I used to have 5 oak trees in front of my house but one got sick and the other was iffy so I had them removed. The base is a fungi heaven. The three remaining oak trees are more than enough shade for the summer shade garden.
I am considering habitat gardening when I decide what to do for fall cleanup. Yep, I know, it's winter but we're having some unseasonably warm weather. I didn't do much fall cleanup and I'm feeling marginally strong so it seems like a good time to decide what I want to do. I definately want to pull dead weeds out of my rose beds. That one is easy. I want to shift some more of the suplus leaves from my front garden to my back garden. My main leaf shift has been from the driveway which was enough for some of my back garden pathways but I have a ways to go. I'm not sure what to do about the leaves in the bushes. If 
I don't get them out before spring nesting, I can't do it. The birds often build nests in areas where the leaves add to the cover and I can't risk disturbing a nest in the spring. I was surprised when I got my wreath off the hook against my house where the deck is to find an old nest on the back side. I'll repriese my photo of the baby bird here because I wonder if that was the bird that was nurtured in the nest. Probably not. It was probably a much smaller bird. Last year's wreath was my first sort of fake one. It had dried greenery and berries so it wasn't exactly fake but it wasn't fresh either. After Christmas I hung it on the hooks in the back and a bird nested on the back side where I couldn't see it. This year I got the wreath down to put on my front door and added fresh greenery and red berries from my holly bushes to give it a face lift. When I was brushing off the leaves and other materials that I assumed had fallen from the roof onto the wreath, I came across a perfect little nest but fortunately it was clearly old and had done it's duty of protection already. I wish I knew more about fungus. Some of my mushrooms look like the ones you pay a fortune for in the grocery story and I love mushrooms. However, I'm not brave enough to try to harvest the ones that volunteer on the old base of oak tree trunks. I used to have 5 oak trees in front of my house but one got sick and the other was iffy so I had them removed. The base is a fungi heaven. The three remaining oak trees are more than enough shade for the summer shade garden.
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