Many Waukesha rental property owners like you want to do their job well by making the rental more environmentally friendly. By making some small changes, you can create a pollinator-friendly yard. Creating easy to maintain yet attractive yards is a best practice for rental property landscaping. However, you or your tenant should also consider making your property’s yard pollinator-friendly. It’s worth thinking about this idea for many reasons. It’s not only a beneficial investment in the environment, but it may add value to your property as well. When done accurately, creating a pollinator-friendly yard may even be an awesome way to entice environmentally conscious tenants.
Though you may not necessarily be an avid gardener, you may have heard that pollinators like butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and other flying insects are quickly declining. These pollinators are beneficial to our ecosystem. Without them, we would not have various fruits, nuts, and seeds that most of us eat and enjoy. But with just a couple of changes to your rental’s landscaping, you can definitely impact pollinator populations in your area.
Plant With Variety
What you can do first to encourage pollinators to visit your rental home’s yard is to use a wide variety of plants in your landscaping. You should ideally select plants that will bloom at separate times, from early spring to late fall. In most areas, you should be able to spot native plant varieties that are both easy to care for and fast to attract pollinators.
Add a Feeder
Hanging a nectar feeder in your rental yard is another simple strategy to entice hummingbirds and butterflies. Apart from giving a lot of benefits to your landscaping plants, a lot of people also enjoy looking at these pollinators’ feed. To entice even more pollinators to your yard, you could also place a dish of ripe fruit or water mixed with sea salt. Butterflies are specifically drawn to these items.
Rethink the Lawn
For a lot of rental homes, a healthy green lawn is a vital part of the landscaping. By making some simple changes, you can also support pollinators with your lawn. As an example, having the grass grow a bit taller (about 3 inches) and develop seed heads will not only retain moisture in the soil but also entice pollinators to your yard. You could also consider integrating some low-growing plants with your grass, such as white clover or violets. These non-invasive plants can boost local pollinator populations without damaging the health of your lawn.
Use Alternatives to Pesticides
Spraying the lawn or other plants with pesticides is an ordinary practice for a lot of property owners. But no matter what kind of insect you intend to kill, you could also be affecting beneficial pollinators. If you must use a spray to manage harmful insects or other issues, consider using the ones that are more environmentally friendly. A couple of oils and soaps can repel pests without killing off pollinators. Cornmeal will sometimes kill off troublesome ant colonies, while garlic, pepper, and even beer can keep certain biting insects at bay.
If your tenant wants to add pollinator-friendly features to your rental home’s yard, you might consider allowing them to do it. Of course, you and your tenant should know what updates will be made, who will do the work, and who will pay for the improvements. In the event that your tenant wants you to cover the costs of the plants and other elements, it still may be a good investment and worth saying yes to since it could add value to your property or make it more attractive to future tenants.
Designing a pollinator-friendly yard for your rental that will also boost your property values is a possibility. But it may be a challenge to know what particular updates will add to your property’s appeal. For answers and advice about this and any other queries you may have about managing your property, you may want to think of turning to expert Waukesha property managers. To understand all of the great services that Real Property Management Greater Milwaukee has to offer – including landscaping advice – contact us online today!
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
