Desert Plants and Wildlife

Native wildlife are a little like kids when it comes to eating. They’ll eat wherever they find food.

Put a kid in a watermelon patch and you’re going to have some missing melons. Not that there’s any equation between kids and wild animals (or is there?), but the analogy is pretty accurate.

Just like all living creatures, wildlife need food, places to live and water. Many native plants already provide these things.

They offer food (leaves, flowers, nectar, pollen, fruit and flowers). They give shelter to wildlife, protecting them from bad weather and from predators. Birds roost in the branches of many larger native plants. In addition, plants give needed water for wildlife.

There are other benefits to encourage and install native plants outside your garden. They help improve poor soil, by providing nutrients from old leaves, old wood and stems, fixing of nitrogen in the soil, making that nitrogen and other nutrients available to even more plants, and they provide microclimates for animals and humans alike. (A nice hammock placed on a hill between two one-seed juniper trees offers some really great views of the sky and surrounding area, cool shade, and relaxation. Many people also take advantage of these microclimates as picnic spots, resting places or cooling-off areas.)

Here are some native plants and the animals they benefit:

Food for Butterflies

• Desert Holly or agarito (Mahonia trifoliate)
• Anaqua (Ehretia anacua)
• Blackbrush (Acacia reigidula)
• Catclaw Acacia (Acacia greggii)
• Purple Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens)
• Creosote bush (Larrea tridentia)
• Honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa)
• Lantana (Lantana spp.)
• Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa)
• Mountain Laurel (Sophoriasecundiflora)
• Palo verde (Parkinsonia texana)
• Redbud (Cercis Canadensis)
• Wild olive (Cordia boissieri)
• Yucca (Yucca spp)

Food for deer

• Blackbrush (see above)
• Catclaw acacia (see above)
• Brasil( Condalia hookeri)
• Catclaw Acacia (see above)
• Desert yaupon (Schaefferia cuneifolia)
• ElbowBush (Foresteria pubescens)
• Flameleaf sumac (Rhus virens)
• Four-wing saltbrush (see above)
• Spiny Hackberry, Granjero (Cltis pallida)
• Guajillo (Acacia berlandieri)
• Hogplum (Colubrina texensis)
• Honey mesquite (see above)
• Oaks (Quercus spp.)
• Palo verde (see above)
• Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.)
• Shrubby blue sage (Salvia ballotiflora)
• Sugar hackberry (see above)
• Wolfberry (Lycium spp.)

Food and protection for birds and squirrels

• Wild olive (see above)
• Twisted Acacia (Acacia schaffneri)
• Prickly Pear cactus (see above)
• Pecan (Carya illinoensis)
• Oaks (see above)
• Narrowleaf foresteria (Foresteria angustifolia)
• Lotebush (Ziziphus obtusifolia)
• Littleleaf sumac (Rhus microphylla)
• Juniper (see above)
• Hogplum (see above)
• Green condalia (Condalia viridis)
• Spiny hackberry (see above)
• Cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia)
• Catclaw acacia (see above)
• Brasil (see above)
• Anaqua (Ehretiaanucua)

Please understand that this is not an exhaustive list. For more native desert plants that benefit wildlife, please contact the author.

Related articles:

1. A Wildlife Corridor of Your Own
2. Deter Wildlife from Your Garden