This Project is part of a community effort, lead by Friends of Hidden Oaks Nature Center, to certify greater Mason District as a Community Wildlife Habitat. Properties are eligible for certification if they provide four basics: food, water, cover, and places where wildlife can raise their young. Eligible properties also feature environmentally responsible practices that reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and excess watering, which helps to protect the area water quality, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. Certified properties are eligible to receive a permanent aluminum yard sign to proudly identify their property as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat (sign cost $16.00 from NWF).
Local citizens can certify their property on-line by completing the application ($15.00 fee). Learn more about certifying your property with NWF or call 1-800-822-9919. You may also call or visit Hidden Oaks Nature Center. Thank you for being a good steward of the local environment!
Visit The Home Depot and other local garden centers for many of the products and supplies necessary to create and maintain a wildlife habitat and ecologically responsible landscape, including:
1. Food: Bird feeders, bird food (seed, suet, nectar (hummingbird and oriole), squirrel feeders
2. Water: Bird baths, pond products: liners, pumps, filters, tubing, pond plants
3. Cover: Hollies, viburnums, junipers
Native plants and plants with exceptionally high wildlife value: Oak trees, dogwood, redbud, hollies, fruiting cherry trees, crabapples, pines, viburnums, blueberries, and coneflower
4. Place to Raise Young: Bird houses, hollies, junipers
5. Environmentally Responsible Gardening: Soaker hoses, organic fertilizers (Milorganite, Ringer, bone meal) and organic herbicides and pesticides (horticultural oil, insecticidal soaps), mulch, compost bins
Project Team: Hidden Oaks Nature Center 703-941-1065
Friends of Hidden Oaks Nature Center 703-573-1110
The Home Depot (Merrifield, Falls Church and Annandale stores)
Honorable Penny Gross, Mason District Supervisor
Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, 703-354-5093
Capital Region Earth Force, 703-519-6867
