I live in southern Wisconsin (growing Zone 5B as of 2023!). Despite living in medium-sized city on busy bus route, a ridiculous amount of wildlife has lived in or visits my backyard including:
Wayward ducks:
Pesky possums:
A family of Wild Turkeys:
And even a homing pigeon that veered several hundred miles off course and plopped into a planter full of impatiens:
I love birdwatching. While many people have to visit parks and nature areas each spring to see migrating warblers and other songbirds, I enjoy a free show in my backyard because our neighborhood sits in a grove of old oaks and hickories.
During the cold, snowy Wisconsin winters, I participate in Project FeederWatch through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
I’m also a certified Master Gardener. My mom taught me a love for gardening that blossomed (a little garden humor) into an obsession. For the last 34 years I’ve been filling my yard with shrubs, flowers, vegetables and herbs.
Lately I’ve been captivated by daylilies (I have 400 cultivars and counting), but I’m not ready to give up on the thousands of annual flowers and veggies that I sprout inside from seed each winter. Needless to say, growing space in my little backyard is shrinking fast!
4 comments
A wonderful back yard. So colorful and well crafted You must have put a lot of work in it over the years. James
very nice! do you ever open your yard to tours?
gigi
I’ve enjoyed looking at your site! Your dad told me about your site and when I went to it I couldn’t stop looking! I love flowers and birds! You have done a wonderful job! Truly a special gift you have! We start most of our veggies from seed and I also save a lot of my flower seed to plant more the next year. I’ve passed the site on to a friend who also loves flowers and gardening. Thanks for making my day!
Hi JB (my Dad told me 🙂 )! Thanks for your kind comments. I’m glad you’re having fun on my site. By the way, I also love Birds & Blooms magazine and coincidentally I just found out about Our Wisconsin a week or so ago and just started subscribing to that as well! I hope you’re getting a little taste of spring up there today like we are down here. It won’t be long now and we’ll get to step outside and smell our own fresh flowers and bite into some garden-fresh vegetables. Wahooo!