4 Plants That Turn Your Tennessee Garden Into a Rare Wildlife Habitat
If you want unusual wildlife that most neighbors will never see in their back yards‚ consider planting Bamboo‚ Pampas Grass‚ Cattails‚ and Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica)․ All four are useful for creating unique microhabitats for wildlife: birds‚ pollinators and small mammals looking for food‚ cover‚ or nesting material that no mass-marketed lawn or flowerbed can provide․ Here's how each one works‚ and what you can realistically expect to see in a Tennessee garden (no exotic pandas or lemurs required)․
Bamboo: Dense Cover for Songbirds and Overwintering Wildlife
In the Southeast‚ bamboo has some real wildlife value unrelated to the panda․ It is a harborage for Carolina wrens‚ cardinals‚ and other native sparrows in gardens in Tennessee during winter‚ when bamboo patches provide shelter and foraging habitat during dead-of-winter cold fronts when other evergreen cover is minimal․ Its close canopy is wind-proof‚ and it retains heat better than most species of deciduous shrub‚ which is why small birds roost in bamboo thickets from November to February․
Clumping bamboo (as opposed to running bamboo) cultivars do best in the home garden in zones 6-8 and are thus suitable for most of Tennessee․ Division of plants works best in the spring after the last frost․ For a small‚ well-behaved clump it will take one full growing season (12-18 months) to become established and form a dense screen․ Additionally‚ bamboo also hosts legions of stem boring beetles‚ which‚ while not particularly interesting to look at‚ are food for woodpeckers and other insectivorous birds that may not otherwise frequent your yard․ Bamboo from TN Nursery was selected for its clumping habit‚ which could be kept from spreading along a fence line or garden border‚ but which would still thicken enough to provide shelter․
Pampas Grass Plugs: Nesting Material and Grassland Habitat
Pampas Grass plugs repay their cost by imitating a grassland habitat type that is now rare in Tennessee due to mowing‚ development‚ and conversion into turf․ The plumage of Pampas Grass‚ as it matures‚ breaks down into fine fibers which are sought every spring by goldfinches and other native sparrows for nesting material․ Dense cover beneath the tall‚ dense stands provides habitat for meadow voles and for ground-feeding birds such as the Eastern towhee‚ which forages for seeds and insects at the bases of grass clumps․
Plugs are better for the establishment of Pampas Grass than seeds as they have faster rooting and reach flowering size in their second year‚ rather than their third․ Pampas Grass is best planted in full sun and well-drained soils at a distance of four feet apart as the clumps will grow to six or eight feet across․ Pampas Grass grows better in the clay soils of Tennessee than most other ornamental grasses‚ but still requires a hard cut back in late winter to within a foot above the ground to prevent the dead thatch from smothering the crown and new growth․
Pampas Grass has a reputation for self-seeding aggressively in the relatively warm states of the Southeast‚ so if you're gardening in or around West Tennessee (zone 7b-8) consider deadheading the plumes before they dry completely or buying sterile cultivars if you don't want them to seed․
Cattails: A Critical Element of Wetland Ecosystems
No plant does more for wetland biodiversity in Tennessee than Cattail․ If you have a pond edge‚ rain garden‚ or low‚ seasonally wet area‚ cattails will turn it into genuine habitat within a single growing season․ Red-winged blackbirds nest almost exclusively in dense cattail stands‚ usually low amongst the stalks above water․ The Least Bittern‚ a small secretive heron‚ is often difficult to spot as it is well camouflaged amongst the reeds and seldom flies during the day․
Cattails support dragonfly larvae‚ which crawl up emergent plants to hatch‚ as well as frogs and muskrats; rhizomes should reach 2-6 inches (51-153 mm) of standing water or wet muck․ Due to its aggressive growth habit‚ provision must be made for cattails to spread‚ or else the stand will have to be divided every two or three years․ In a small pond‚ a dense mat of cattails can narrow‚ choke or fill in open water․ TN Nursery sells bare-root divisions of cattails‚ which can be planted immediately at pond margins and in bog gardens‚ where they establish themselves quickly and bloom as soon as the first summer․
Carex Pensylvanica: The Overlooked Native Powerhouse
You can barely tell it is there at first glance․ Just a fine-textured, grass-like groundcover slowly spreading like a carpet to cover the ground․ But Pennsylvania Sedge is a true native woodland grass of Tennessee․ And it does something that none of the other three plants here can do․
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