Just as we’re physically weaker when we lose muscle, freshwater ecosystems weaken when they lose their
mussels.

14—They’re a very important part of the aquatic ecosystem. They’re the foundation. I like to call them the vacuum cleaners; their main diet is bacteria and other small particles. They’re the filtration systems of the rivers, lakes and ponds.

Texas Mussel Watch coordinator, Marsha May, says one species of Texas mussel is on the federal endangered species list. US Fish and Wildlife is considering listing additional species of freshwater mussels.

03—We’ll see what happens in the next three to five years.

You can help keep track of these important species as a member of Texas Mussel Watch.

24—Texas Mussel Watch is a program designed to get citizens involved in monitoring freshwater mussel species throughout the whole state of Texas. We hold workshops normally in the springtime. They can learn about freshwater mussels. Once they’ve gone through the workshop, they can be put on my
scientific permit, and then go out and monitor mussels within their own community and give us information on what they find, because it’s very important information.

Find information about mussel watch on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show with support from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

The summer heat and drought of 2011 killed too many trees to count. And fall is the time to start replacing them.

10— Getting the trees in the ground in the fall, they have the entire dormant season o spread roots out before the bog demands on roots and water starts in the spring.

Scott Harris is an arborist with Tree Folks of Austin.

14— you always want to plant your trees at the exact same level that they were in the pot. So, the grade with the surrounding ground is going to be the same as they were in the pot. Don’t fig a big deep hole, dig a big wide hole.

Use the soil you removed as back fill, and do not add compost to the hole—just put it around the tree instead.

22— Put your compost underneath the mulch, which you should have three or four inches of. And then all of that organic goodness will kind of dribble down, in the way nature intended. Sort of like the forest floor: you have less broken down things on the top, and more the deeper down you go.

Soil moisture is especially important during the first three years after installing your tree. Provide one inch of water each week for the first season. But if 2012 gives us another dry scorcher of a summer, you will have to water more often.

Find information on wildscaping and a Texas native plant database on the TPW website.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This is Passport to Texas

Wildscaping is a method of landscaping that allows urban dwellers to create sustainable wildlife habitat in their yards. The first element of a Wildscape: shelter.

07—Shelter is primarily done by structuring your landscape so that you have some plants at every level of the horizon.

Mark Klym oversees the wildscaping program at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Shelter gives wildlife places to escape or to nest.

10—A lot of people think of nests, they think tall trees. Well, most of our birds don’t nest in tall trees. They nest within five feet of the ground. And, so, if we take out all the brush at the five foot level, we’ve eliminated their habitat.

Klym says when you structure your landscape with plants at every level – including lower brush — it becomes attractive to more species.

10—At the same time, that lower vegetation serves as a great food resource usually, because that’s usually the plants that your berries, your nets, your nectar flower are going to occur on.

You can find more information about wildscaping – including a native plant database — on the Texas Parks and Wildlife web site.

That’s our show for today …For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This is Passport to Texas

A highly manicured landscape may attract the praise of neighbors, but it won’t attract much native wildlife. To do that, you need a wildscape.

05—Essentially, wildscaping is creating your landscape in a way that’s going to be friendly to wildlife.

Mark Klym is with wildlife diversity at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Fall is a good time to create a Wildscape.

16—So, we’re looking at providing food, shelter and water for the wildlife on the space that you have available using native plants. We ask for at least fifty-one percent native plants. And creating a habitat they feel comfortable with, while at the same time, keeping it comfortable for yourself and your neighbors.

For example, creating a wildlife attracting brush pile in your yard may seem a bit unruly for your tidy suburban neighborhood, but if done right, it can satisfy both man and beast.

20—Well, a brush pile is a wonderful thing for the wildlife to have. And if it’s properly done, it can be a very pleasing thing for us, especially when you start getting some of the field sparrows that we don’t normally see around our gardens, coming into our garden because of that brush pile. These are a wonderful resource. I’ve seen them in downtown Corpus Christi in a way that the neighbors wouldn’t even know they were there unless they looked for them.

Find more information about wildscaping on the Texas Parks and Wildlife web site.

That’s our show for today …For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

During extended periods of drought, when the risk of wildfires is highest, your plant choices and their
placement in the landscape could make your home vulnerable to fire damage.

While we do want to encourage the use of shrubs and brush around the home, we don’t want to encourage it right up against the home. Especially things that are extremely flammable…

Such as yaupon holly and cedar. Marks Klym coordinates the Texas Wildscapes program for Parks and Wildlife. In cooperation with the Texas Forest Service’s Firewise program, Klym’s program endeavors to educate homeowners about plant choices that are hot, but not readily flammable.

Something that’s got a higher water content. Things that don’t tend to take fire from the ground towards the roof, because the roof is a sensitive area in most homes. Things that don’t take fire from the ground up into your window frames, which is another very sensitive area. You want to avoid our tall native grasses, because they have a tendency to dry out and become a firebox. Certainly, the other thing you can do is use that area for your hardscapes. Things like rock walls…walkways. These become a good barrier that the firs has difficulty jumping, unless you’ve got forty mile an hour winds.

We have the link to the Texas Fire-wise website, at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

One of the things we tout about Wildscapes—which are landscapes comprised of native wildflowers and other native plants that provide food and shelter for wildlife—is how little maintenance they require once established.

That doesn’t make them entirely carefree, though.

Dr. Damon Waitt, senior botanist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, says fall and winter can keep a body busy working on Wildscapes.

Fall and winter are both great times to start working on the wildflowers that we don’t think of as wildflowers: our trees and shrubs. And so, you can be planting trees and shrubs, you can be doing tree and shrub maintenance, pruning, and trimming your plants back—your small perennial, herbaceous plants—your lantanas, and things like that. You know, getting rid of that brush so the plants have room to grow the following spring. You can be collecting leaves and vegetative material from your plants to start your mulch pile, so you have mulch. There’s lots of things you can do in the garden in fall and winter.

So, if you thought you were free of yard work until spring…sorry.

That’s our show….we receive support from the Wildlife Restoration program…working to protect and preserve wildlife habitat in Texas….For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

If cats, dogs and grackles are the only wildlife visiting your backyard—you need a wildscape. Creating one is not as tough as you might think.

02–You know, the hardest part is just getting started.

Kelly Bender is an urban wildlife biologist and co-author of the book Texas Wildscapes, and was instrumental in creating the Texas Wildscapes interactive DVD, which comes with the book, and guides users through planning an urban oasis.

15–The wildscape DVD is designed to help people to get started in planning their habitat, understanding what wildlife need to succeed, or to survive, and to give them the tools that they need to start implementing wildlife habitat management principles in their own gardens and landscapes.

Just pop the DVD into your computer, and a wealth of information, including which plants will grow in your area and what wildlife they attract, is at your fingertips.

20–We made this product that allows us to enter in different variables. So, you can say, well, I want something that is native to Central Texas, that needs a lot of sunshine or a little bit of sunshine, or attracts hummingbirds, or attracts songbirds, or whatever it is that you really want to have in a plant. And it will give you a list of plants that are appropriate for your goals.

Texas Wildscapes DVDs come with the Texas Wildscapes book from book sellers through Texas A & M Press.

That’s our show…we receive support from the Wildlife restoration program, working to preserve habitat in Texas. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Trees are habitat for wildlife. And if you’re adding new trees to your landscape, you need to know the rules.

People frequently ask how close they can put a tree to the house, because shade on the house obviously is a huge energy savings. The general rule of thumb is you go no closer to the house than the eaves are high. So, if you measure up to the eaves of your house, and it’s ten feet high, then you need to get ten feet back from the house.

Scott Harris, a certified arborist in Austin, recommends planting only native specimens.

You always want to plant your trees at the exact level they were in the pot. Don’t dig a big deep hole, dig a big wide hole. Always use the same soil you took out to backfill. But, you can put your compost underneath the mulch, and then all of that organic goodness will dribble down in the way that nature intended.

By watering infrequently and deeply, we can help new trees develop extensive root systems.

If you just have a little bit of water in one area, that’s where the roots are going to go. But if you water very deeply, it’ll spread into the surrounding soil, and the roots will follow that moisture out.

Strong root systems help trees remain strong and withstand drought.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Now is an ideal time to plant trees throughout most of Texas…and you might wonder why.

Two reasons: the two most important constituents in tree planting—the people planting the trees and the trees. It’s just much easier on them.

Scott Harris is a certified arborist in Austin. Tree planting season in Texas started in October and continues through March.

Getting the trees in the ground in the fall [and winter], they have the entire cool season, dormant season, to spread roots out before the big demands on roots and water start in the spring.

Just because a tree will grow in Texas, doesn’t mean it should grow here. Harris advises that we all exercise caution about what we plant in our yards.

The biggest thing to avoid is non-natives. Our natives have all of the features you would want, but they’ve spent thousands and thousands of years getting used to being here, and with all of the wildlife used to having them, too. It’s all a web, and you can’t tell which string you can pull out without upsetting things.

Tomorrow we’ll have a few tree planting tips to help you and your newly planted tree enjoy a long and happy life together.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

If cats, dogs and grackles are the only wildlife visiting your backyard—you need a wildscape. Creating one is not as tough as you might think.

You know, the hardest part is just getting started.

Kelly Bender is an urban wildlife biologist and co-author of the book Texas Wildscapes. She was instrumental in creating the new Texas Wildscapes interactive DVD, which guides users through planning an urban oasis.

The Wildscape DVD is designed to help people to get started in planning their habitat, understanding what wildlife need to succeed, or to survive, and to give them the tools that they need to start implementing wildlife habitat management principles in their own gardens and landscapes.

Just pop the DVD into your computer, and a wealth of information, including which plants will grow in your area and what wildlife they attract, is at your fingertips.

We made this product that allows us to enter in different variables. So, you can say, well, I want something that is native to Central Texas, that needs a lot of sunshine or a little bit of sunshine, or attracts hummingbirds, or attracts songbirds, or whatever it is that you really want to have in a plant. And it will give you a list of plants that are appropriate for your goals.

Texas Wildscaping DVDs are free and available now. But quantities are limited. Go to passporttotexas.org to find out how to obtain your copy.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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To obtain your copy of the free Wildscaping DVD, send an email to:nature@tpwd.state.tx.us