Habitat elements
Missouri’s native wildlife needs native food sources, clean water and diverse, abundant cover to survive. By providing these habitat elements, you can turn your yard into a lively nature preserve, full of songbirds, toads, frogs, butterflies and other wildlife. The documents on this page provide information on wildlife-friendly landscape designs to help you construct or enhance your own "patchwork" of natural Missouri!
Landscape designs and ideas for birds, butterflies and other fun-to-watch wildlife
Butterfly Gardening and Conservation teaches you about Missouri’s beautiful butterfly species and how to select host plants that will serve them at various stages of their life cycle.
Grow Native! helps you learn about, choose, find, plant and maintain the Missouri-grown native plant species that wildlife love.
Native Grasses for Landscaping shows you how to incorporate Missouri’s beautiful and wildlife-friendly native grasses in your backyard landscape designs.
10-year Plant Succession Plot shows that wildlife habitat succeeds with succession. Some wildlife need a bit of bare ground, others need clumpy grasses and still others need shrubs and trees. Learn how to create the full range of successional stages to attract a wide variety of wildlife.
Controlling weeds protects wildlife
Vegetation Management Manual covers the most common weedy threats to Missouri’s wildlife habitat and techniques for controlling them.
Create habitat for wildlife, but please don’t adopt them!
Why Wild Animals Don't Make Good Pets
Browse by Subject
- Crop and grasslands
- What you need to know about crop and grasslands
- Lakes and ponds
- Information on creating healthy lakes and ponds
- Forestry for private landowners
- Find out how to manage the forest on your land
- Streams and watersheds
- A variety of information on streams and their watersheds
- Wetlands
- Find details on wetlands management
- Wildlife management
- Learn how to manage the wildlife on your land
