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#garden a bit
i-merani · 1 year
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flameraven · 2 years
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anipgarden · 11 months
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Things to Do that Aren't Related to Growing Plants
This is my second post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps! 
Some of us just don’t have much luck when it comes to growing plants. Some of us simply want to aim for other ways to help that don’t involve putting on gardening gloves. Maybe you've already got a garden, but you want to do more. No problem! There’s a couple of options you can look into that’ll help attract wildlife in your area without even having to bring out any shovels!
Provide a Water Source
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Oftentimes when I see ‘add a water source’ in informational articles about improving your backyard for wildlife, it’s almost always followed by an image of a gorgeous backyard pond with a waterfall and rock lining that looks expensive to set up, difficult to maintain, and overall just… not feasible for me. Arguably, not feasible for a lot of people. And that’s okay! There’s still ways to add water in your garden for all kinds of creatures to enjoy!
There’s tons of ways to create watering stations for insects like bees and butterflies. A self refilling dog bowl can work wonders! Add some stones into the receiving tray for insects to land on or use to climb out, and you’ve got a wonderful drinking spot for all kinds of insects! You can also fill a saucer or other dish with small stones and fill it, though it’ll likely need refilling daily or even several times a day during hot times. 
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I've seen people online use all kinds of things to make water features. Some go with terra-cotta pots, pebbles, and a cheap pump to get a small and simple fountain. Others use old tires, clay, and a hole in the ground to create an in-ground mini pond system. If all else fails, even a bucket or watertight box with a few plants in it can do the trick--though do be wary of mosquitoes if the water isn’t moving. In situations like these, a solar-powered fountain pump or bubbler are great for keeping the water moving while still making it a drinking option for wildlife (it not even more appealing for some)--and these items can be obtained fairly cheap online!
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Bird baths are an option as well--a classic way to provide for birds in your area, they can be easy to find online or in a gardening store! The only downside is that a good, quality bird bath can be pricey up-front. However, a nice stone bird bath should last a long time, be easy to clean and refill, and be enjoyed by many birds! I’ve also seen tutorials on how to make your own with quickcrete! Bird baths will be a welcome sight to birds, as they provide a space for them to drink and bathe to regulate the oils in their feathers for flight and insulation. Putting a stone in the middle will also help insects to escape if they fall in, and provide a place to perch so they can get their own drink. You’ll want to change the water and clean the baths regularly--as often as once a week, if you can manage it.
If possible, it’s highly encouraged to fill and refill water features with rainwater instead of tap water. Tap water is often treated, so instead of using hoses or indoor kitchen water, collecting some rainwater is a great alternative. Collecting rainwater can be as simple as leaving cups, bins, or pots outside for awhile.
Butterflies and other creatures will also drink from mud puddles. If you can maintain an area of damp soil mixed with a small amount of salt or wood ash, this can be fantastic for them! Some plants also excel at storing water within their leaves and flowers (bromeliads come to mind), making them an excellent habitat for amphibians as well as a drinking spot for insects and birds.
Bird Feeders and Bird Houses
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Some of the fancy, decorated bird feeders are expensive, but others can be pretty low-cost--I got my bird feeder from Lowe’s for around 10 dollars, and a big bag of birdseed was around another 10 dollars and has lasted several refills! If you don’t mind occasionally buying more birdseed, a single birdfeeder can do a lot to attract and support local birds! If you’re handy, have some spare wood, and have or can borrow some tools, you may even be able to find instructions online to make your own feeder. You may not even need wood to do so! Even hummingbird feeders, I’ve found, are quick to attract them, as long as you keep them stocked up on fresh sugar water in the spring and summer!
An important note with bird feeders is that you have to make sure you can clean them regularly. Otherwise, they may become a vector for disease, and we want to avoid causing harm whenever possible. Also keep an ear out and track if there’s known outbreaks of bird diseases in your area. If local birding societies and scientists are advising you take your birdfeeders down for awhile, by all means, do it!
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Bird houses are naturally paired with bird feeders as biodiversity promoters for backyard spaces, and it makes sense. Having bird houses suited to birds in your area promotes them to breed, raise their young, disperse seeds, and generally engage in your surrounding environment. Setting them up takes careful selection or construction, preparation, and some patience, but sooner or later you might get some little homemakers! Keep in mind, you will need to clean your birdhouses at least once a year (if not once per brood) to make sure they’re ready and safe for birds year after year--you wouldn’t want to promote disease and parasites, after all. But they could be a valuable option for your landscape, whether you purchase one or construct your own! 
Again, do make sure you're putting up the right kind of boxes for the right kinds of birds. Bluebird boxes are some I see sold most commonly, but in my area I believe they're not even all that common--a nesting box for cardinals or chickadees would be far more likely to see success here! And some birds don't even nest in boxes--robins and some other birds are more likely to use a nesting shelf, instead! Research what birds live in your area, take note of any you see around already, and pick a few target species to make homes for!
Solitary Bee Houses
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A bee house or bee hotel is a fantastic way to support the solitary bees in your area! For a few dollars and some annual cleaning, you can buy a solitary bee house from most big box nurseries. Alternatively, you can make one at home, with an array of materials you may already have lying around! You can even make them so that they’ll benefit all kinds of insects, and not necessarily just bees.
Though you don’t even necessarily have to break out the hammer and nails, buy a ton of bricks, or borrow a staple gun. Making homes for tunneling bees can be as simple as drilling holes in a log and erecting it, or drilling holes in stumps and dead trees on your property. You might even attract some woodpeckers by doing this!
Providing Nesting Area
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There are tons of different kinds of bees, and they all make different kinds of homes for themselves. Not all of them make big cavity hives like honey bees, or will utilize a solitary bee house. Bumblebees live in social hives underground, particularly in abandoned holes made by rodents--some others nest in abandoned bird nests, or cavities like hollow logs, spaces between rocks, compost piles, or unoccupied birdhouses. Borer, Ground, and Miner bees dig into bare, dry soil to create their nests. Sparsely-vegetated patches of soil in well-drained areas are great places to find them making their nests, so providing a similar habitat somewhere in the garden can encourage them to come! I do talk later in this document about mulching bare soil in a garden--however, leaving soil in sunny areas and south-facing slopes bare provides optimal ground nesting habitat. Some species prefer to nest at the base of plants, or loose sandy soil, or smooth-packed and flat bare ground. They’ve also been known to take advantage of soil piles, knocked over tree roots, wheel ruts in farm roads, baseball diamonds and golf course sand traps. You can create nesting ground by digging ditches or creating nesting mounds in well-drained, open, sunny areas with sandy or silty soil. However, artificially constructed ground nests may only have limited success. 
Providing Alternative Pollinator Foods
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Nectar and pollen aren’t the only foods sought out by some pollinators! Some species of butterflies are known to flock to overripe fruit or honey water, so setting these out can be an excellent way to provide food to wildlife. You may want to be cautious about how you set these out, otherwise it can help other wildlife, like ants or raccoons. Butterflies may also drop by to visit a sponge in a dish of lightly salted water. 
Bat Houses and Boxes
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Big or small, whether they support five bats or five hundred, making bat boxes and supporting local bats is a great way to boost biodiversity! Not only will they eat mosquitoes and other pest species, but you may also be able to use the guano (bat droppings) as fertilizer! Do be careful if you choose to do that though--I’ve never had the opportunity to, so do some research into how strong it is and use it accordingly.
Provide Passageway Points
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If you want your area to be more accessible for creatures that can’t fly or climb fences, allowing or creating access points can be an excellent way to give them a way in and out. Holes in the bottom of walls or fences can be sheltered with plants to allow animals through. 
In a somewhat similar manner, if you’re adding a water fixture, it’s important to provide animals a way to get into and out of the pond--no way in, and they can’t use the water. No way out, and they may drown. Creating a naturalistic ramp out of wood beams or sticks, or stepped platforms out of bricks, stones, or logs can do the trick. 
Get or Keep Logs and Brush Piles
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I’ve already mentioned logs a good handful of times so far in this post. To be used as access ramps, or as nesting areas for solitary bees. But they have value as much more than that! Logs on the ground provide shelter for all kinds of animals, especially depending on size--anything from mice, reptiles, and amphibians to things like turkey vultures and bears will use fallen logs as shelter. Inside of a decaying log, there’s a lot of humidity, so amphibians are big fans of them--meanwhile, the upper sides of them can be used as sunning platforms by things like lizards. Other animals can also use the insides of logs as nest sites and hiding places from predators too big to fit inside. Fungi, spiders, beetles, termites, ants, grubs, worms, snails, slugs, and likely much more can be found inside rotting logs, using the rotting wood as food sources or nesting places. They can then provide food for mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. They can also be regarded as a landmark or territory marker as wildlife get more familiar with your space.
So how do you get logs for cheap? Try Chip Drop! I talk about them more in a future post, but you can mark saying that you’d like logs in your drop, so they’ll give you any they have! In fact, you may even get a drop faster if you're willing to accept some logs. You may also be able to approach arborists you see working in your area and ask for logs. There may also be local online listings for people selling logs for cheap, or just trying to get rid of them. If there’s land development going on near you, you may be able to snag logs from trees they cut down to make space. Do keep in mind, you don’t need to have huge gigantic logs laying around your property to make an impact--even small logs can help a lot.
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If possible, creating and leaving brush piles on the edge of your property can be a great boost to biodiversity--even if you may not see the wildlife using it. They’ll provide shelter from weather and predators, and lower portions are cool and shady for creatures to avoid the hot sun. The upper layers can be used as perch sites and nest sites for song birds, while lower layers are resting sites for amphibians and reptiles, and escape sites for many mammals. As the material decays, they also attract insects, and as such they’ll attract insect-eating animals too. As more small animals find refuse in your brush pile, their predators will be attracted to them as well. Owls, hawks, foxes, and coyotes are known to visit brush piles to hunt. Making a brush pile can be as simple as piling branches and leaves into a mound, as big or as small as you want. You can even use tree stumps or old fence posts near the base, and keep stacking on plant trimmings and fallen branches. Do note that you don’t want to do this near anything like a fire pit.
Don't forget, with all of these, your mileage may vary for any variation of reasons, so don't worry if you can't take all of even any of these actions! Even just talking about them with other people may inspire someone else to put out a bat box, or leave a few logs out for wildlife!
That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to get seeds and plants as cheaply as possible. For now, I hope this advice helps! Feel free to reply with any questions, success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!
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fumifooms · 25 days
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Homegrown
Thistle and Delgal - Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui
^ Fernando Pessoa / Killing Flies, Michael Dickman / A Brother Named Gethsemane, Natalie Diaz / Antigonick, Anne Carson v Oats We Sow, Gregory and the Hawk
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bulbagarden · 24 days
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Larry says: 'Happy Trans Day of Visibility.'
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kangaruthi · 2 months
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harrowhark height reveal
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posthumanwanderings · 6 months
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aroaceleovaldez · 2 months
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chewing on big 3 kids being capable of absolutely devastating natural disasters and apocalypse-level outbursts of power.
Percy who creates hurricanes complete with lightning that pummel titans and flooding and whirlpools that can trap god-powered crocodile kaijus. Earthquakes that erupt volcanoes. Hazel who sunk an entire small island entirely on her own with her final breath, against giants and a primordial goddess of the earth.
If Nico dramatically wilts plants and cracks the ground when he's mildly stressed, and disintegrates enemies down to their skeletons with a single touch or rips their souls out of their still-living bodies, and can command armies of the undead, what happens if he tries to cause destruction? Even outside of total zombie apocalypse or insta-killing a crowd, he's shown enough geokinesis to absolutely be capable of the same destruction Percy and Hazel can manifest.
What about Jason? He can control the winds and storms. There's no way he can't create the most destructive tornadoes with casual effort that he can never justify using for the collateral damage they'd cause. With a single thought he can rip up a town and launch the remnants 50 miles out. (Jason in the center of a Dead Man Walking tornado, vortexes responding to his movements like an avatar...)
And what can anyone do to combat it? How can you fight the wind lifting everything you know and love into the sky, or floods sweeping you away, or the ground giving way beneath you? The Big 3 kids are scary because they are forces of nature, and their whims are the only thing preventing you from witnessing that at any given moment.
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monstermonger · 1 year
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Fire-roasted chestnuts bring in the best visitors C:
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otaku553 · 5 months
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More doodles for the one piece spy x family crossover
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campfiresketchbook · 2 years
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The roots surround you
Thank you @captain-celestial-chrome for the wood burning kit I love to destroy
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melveres · 28 days
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letters from his Spellbinder
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leapdayowo · 7 months
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Over the Garden Wall :3
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I think I did otgw art forever ago once, and I’ve made a few attempts over the years, but I finally did it! It’s them! :D and just in time for autumn and spooky season!
oh also here is the painting in direct sunlight (it’s not the right vibe but I like sharing it anyway):
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24bughours · 2 months
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Inspired by how spotify only plays Lowe's ads when i listen to my toshi playlist
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Note
HI HI DOVE :DD im so excited for the event!! your writings always make me kick my feet and giggle c:
so yk my undying live for the one and only jade leech ^^ (even if the bitey bastard refuses to show his face in gacha >:0) and i see [fairytale scene] fits his love for nature C:
jade and cottagecore hmmmmm 👀 well there goes my brain and my spine—
REMEMBER TO HYDRATE AND UNSHRIMP YOUR SPINE TOO DOVE :DD
Fairytale Scene; Jade Leech
Content; Fluff, gender-neutral reader, mutual pining, yearning
Content Warning; Some swearing
Word Count; 700+
Author's Note; I don't even know how I ended up with this, but it's cute! Hopefully, this makes up for the bitey bastard refusing to come home!
As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist
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You felt like you were living in a dream, a picture-perfect dream that only existed in fairytales. How else could you have ended up alone in a quaint cottage on the edge of the sea with Jade Leech; the man that had captured your heart since day one? And despite Floyd and Azul basically making the two of you pack up your bags for a week-long vacation with the crush that you swore was secret — as you hadn’t uttered a word to anybody — you found yourself and Jade alone with just each other for an entire seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours, ten thousand and eighty minutes, alone. Scratch that, maybe not a dream, this seemed more like a plot of some cheesy rom-com where both of the characters confessed their love to each other on the beach. But there was no chance that Jade, the Jade Leech would do that… right?
“You seem distracted, Prefect.”
You jumped and hit your head against the hanging flower bed since the two of you were doing some sprucing up in the garden. You were fine, but your clumsiness sent a pot crashing to the ground, leaving you more embarrassed than anything. “Nope! Perfectly fine!” But the rise in octave betrayed you.
If it were anyone else, Jade would have found it amusing, which he still did, but instead of just chuckling at your misfortune, he helped you get out from under the flower bed, and made sure that you weren’t hurt. “Hmm, are you alright, my dear,” he hummed, looking you over for any cuts.
I’m not okay, no, especially with you looking at me like that and calling me dear. I think I’m going to have a stroke here. “Yeah! Just my own clumsiness is all—” you stopped mid-sentence, and stared at Jade. 
The mid-afternoon sun cast him in a warm light, turning his eyes into a glowing gold, and highlighting the olive of his right eye. The ocean glittered behind him. He had a few leaves stuck in his hair, and some dirt on his face, so unlike his clean and refined state that you usually saw him in. And the look he was giving you… it was so soft, so full of worry, concern, and love. 
Perhaps you had hit your head hard enough to give yourself a concussion, with your luck it was more likely than your feelings being reciprocated. 
And Jade’s staring at you was not helping the manner, he was looking you straight in the eye, and you couldn’t look away for some reason. You two hadn’t even been here for a full day yet! How could you expect to survive an entire week of this?!
You weren’t, that was the entire reason the both of you were here. Azul had grown tired of seeing Jade get distracted on the job, and Floyd was getting bored of seeing the two of you do nothing. But you and Jade didn’t need to know that, even if the mer-eel knew what Azul was plotting with this ‘vacation’. This was all a set-up for the two of you to confess, and what a fine set-up it was.
“You need to be more careful,” Jade breathed out, finally putting his concern at ease when he couldn’t find anything wrong. 
There he was, giving you that look again. “Uhhhh, okay,” you said eloquently. Who could blame you really? 
Jade chuckled softly as he helped you up, brushing some dirt off your shoulders. And before you knew it, you were rubbing off the smudge of dirt that was on his cheek, and he froze, looking at you with a curious look.
Shit, did I cross his boundaries? SHIT-
“You are full of surprises,” he murmured, taking the hand you used to smudge the dirt off his face into his, before placing a kiss on your earth-stained knuckles. A week alone, that’s rather unfair of you Azul, but no need to worry, I shall use it to my advantage. And he then placed a kiss to where you had bumped your head. “Hopefully that speeds up the healing process, my dear.”This is a dream, a fairytale scene. This can’t be actually happening… right? But the lingering sensation of his lips on your cheeks was very much, not a dream.
~~~~~~~
Tags; @aqua-beam @azulashengrottospiano @eynnwwyjth @hisui-dreamer @hydra-sea @identity-theft-101 @krenenbaker @officialdaydreamer00 @savanaclaw1996 @silvers-numberonefan @twistwonderlanddevotee @xxoomiii
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psalmsofpsychosis · 26 days
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not gonna lie homos and homies, there's something incredibly, incredibly depressing about Batmanverse and the concept of Batjokes in particular, and it's not the murder murder stab stab death plots.
It's the collective unmentioned canon agreement around these characters never being able to escape the confinements of their narrative.
they get pushed to the very edges of their predefined thresholds, they toe the lines of their stories, they poke it and probe it and sometimes even flirt with the possibility of crossing the bounds of their narratives, but they never break throught the structure. they never go over the line, always sorta of wiggling in place; batjokes in particular is the most enticing and intriguing stagnant 85+ years story i have ever seen.
There are unspoken rules around who Batman is, what he will and will not do, and those rules are rarely questioned, if ever. No matter what he does, he cannot be in love with a man, and he cannot ever love Joker in particular. He cannot experience mental and emotional peace. he cannot kill and he cannot show sincere emotional vulnurability, he cannot experience his love in an open and unashamed way. His narrative thresholds confine him to a socially sanctioned image that is meant to be familiar and tangible to the average straight dude, and it's quite frankly exhausting to witness. Whatever happens to Batman's story, he never arrives at physical emotional or mental peace and on a foundational level his tale never changes, not really. You can almost feel it when he constantly bumps into this unspoken narrative rules and stops in his tracks, each and every goddamn time, for 85+ years. It's like a keyed up nutcracker toy soldier bumping into a wall, stumble back two steps, bump into the walls, stumble back two steps, bumpt into the wall,
As someone who loves stories that love to question their own narrative points and break through them and do something different, staring at Batmanverse comics for too long at a time lowkey feels heartbreaking, nothing ever truly changes in this bitch.
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