Providing cover
Here's a bird's eye view of cover. See the chickadee? This is a very different view of this climbing hydrangea than we usually see from the outside.
Cover is important for shelter, but also for protection from predators. Too often our overly manicured and neatly clipped bushes don't provide cover. Non-native species of plantings may not provide as good cover as does native plants that co-evolved with our native creatures.
Although I intentionally created my backyard habitat just a few years ago, I have always liked a lot of natural-looking biomass. As a result, I had quite a bit of cover already, although I then removed some of the less valuable plants such as the forsythia colony and burning bush and replaced them with native dogwoods. These were popular spots with birds, but there were other bushes that had a lot more value than these.
Some of the bushes in my yard that provide cover (or will provide cover when they mature) are: arborvitae, Northern bayberry, dogwood, hemlocks, holly, juniper, various types of viburnum, as well as a few maple trees.
I've read that you should aim to have about 10% of your property planted in evergreens for the valuable cover they provide. I have some established arborvitae, and two Eastern Red Cedar Junipers, and the three Canadian hemlocks I planted will also provide valuable cover. The junipers need full sun and the hemlocks do well in the shade, so I have a
And don't forget that there is a special need for cover in the cold Central New York winter.
A place to perch
Not exactly cover, but many creatures do need a place to perch. It sounds trivial, but if you're a bird that needs to sing its song to declare your territory, you need a place to sing it! So many yards have neatened up all the dead branches so there are no good perching spots!
Here's some of the cover I've started in the back corner of our yard. It's also providing food. The biggest bush shown here is an elderberry, but there's a variety of other things here including Cupplant and a Eastern Cedar next to this section. In other parts of the back yard, there are other bushes.
This shows some of the cover in the front yard. The bushes at the bottom are all but one of my male bayberries. Unfortunately, I happened to purchase mostly males when I first bought bayberries until I realized that fall was the best time to buy them so you could see the berries and know which ones were female. I moved these out to the front so they will at least provide cover when they're grown even though they won't produce berries. There's also a redbud tree and a weeping crabapple.
Toad Abode - This is supposed to provide cover for toads. I don't know if any of our toads have ever used it, but I like to have it anyway.
Rock wall - Some creatures can live in a stone wall. This isn't as an elaborate stone wall as it should be, but it was made from the small stones left over from the pond. To the left is the beginnings of the wet meadow.
Perching
Can you see the 12-spotted skimmer dragonfly perching on this arrowwood viburnum? (You can also see the damage caused by the Viburnum Leaf Beetle.)
