Dead Wood in Your Garden: Getting Creative!
- May 6
- 3 min read
Free, sustainable and helps beneficial insects.
Scientists studying the best ways to create more effective habitat for beneficial insects, the vast majority of insects in our gardens, say dead wood is very good. Whether a loose pile of natural debris or a curated sculpture of twigs, dead wood creates nooks, crevices, crannies and hiding locations for all of those insects song birds crave. Good news for gardeners. It makes our gardening more sustainable. There is less reason to create piles of debris to be removed or bagged and driven to a different location. And, in many ways, it's just a lot easier.
There are many ways to add your wood. Creative possibilities abound. First let's start with what I did, which I really don't recommend!
A few years back, when keeping excess twigs and branches became a recommended thing, I started tossing little pieces of this and that in the same place, beneath side by side southern and sweet bay magnolias thinking it was an out of the way spot. It is now quite a large blob and has become a favorite bunny hideout so I can't bring myself to move or rearrange it. This would be fine for a larger garden in an out of the way spot or if you had the space to add multiples in an artful pattern but in a small garden, every spot is in view and one pile is not artful! If I were going for this chop and drop method again, I would create an alleyway with larger sticks pounded into the ground with a mallet creating a narrow frame and end result of a winding stream of twigs and branches.
If height is of interest, you can create wonderful twisting sculptural spires in containers or in the ground. Vines that have been cut back and more pliable branches like recently cut willow and dogwood shrubs are perfect for this.
Pieces of cut logs can be repurposed in a myriad of ways. A piece with an indentation at one end makes a naturally artful planter. Put a few odd pieces together to create a base for a container. If you let family and friends know you are on the hunt for a few smaller pieces of logs, it's amazing how quickly they seem to turn up.
If you have carpentry skills, you can use wood in some very elaborate ways. Logs of all sizes were used to created this shady arbor. Leaving most of the wood unvarnished lets insects do their thing.
These handmade spheres in a garden outside of Seattle make a plain lawn playful. The spheres are bound together with wire in key places. These have the advantage of being moveable too.
Stumpery, collections of, well, stumps, and usually ferns, were popular in Victorian times. Today they are very effective for repurposing pieces of wood. Definitely an acquired style but it does work quite well for nature!
Efforts can be simple too. Once I realized my blob needed work, I was more deliberate with my discarded wood. Nothing simpler than grouping sticks and wood together in a pleasing pattern.
I loved this trellis made of both found pieces of wood and repurposed slats in one of my favorite native gardens. Ginna's Native Paradise Garden was packed with creative ideas like this. And, if you want to make it as simple as possible, place a few baskets around your garden and toss in branches, twigs and weeds for insects to find as Ginna does. So easy and so effective!
Leaving pieces of wood in our gardens is an easy way to attract more birds and amp up habitat for insects in our gardens. While you may already be collecting and saving wood in your garden, most gardeners are not. Many gardeners are not familiar with why one would want to do this. This makes it even more important to be deliberate. Showing you are reusing wood in a purposeful way is educational. Tossing it in a heap, like my bunny blob, is not. It just reads as messy. Top on my to do list - surrounding that bunny blob with something more purposeful!
Happy Gardening.
Wood, I’ve got. Artistry, not so much. But lining the edges of my gardens does seem to help keep the yard guys from lopping the heads off my pussy toes, etc.
Such an inspiring post! It's so nice expand the enjoyment and creativity of gardening by finding the beauty and usefulness in sticks and branches instead of seeing them only as debris.
Shortly after reading yournpost, I was out checking the moisture after yesterday's rain and, with your post fresh in mind, picked up some sticks perfect to use to corral my floppers, like Coreopsis!!! So simple. Thank you so so much!!!
We just bought a few acres in Missouri and there are some big, really big, ugly brush piles. I shall try to make them beautiful. :) Thanks for the ideas!