One of our goals living at Yarrow Creek was to restore, enhance and preserve the natural habitat. Before we could do that – we had to educate ourselves on the property’s diverse eco-system.

On one side of the cabin the land has poor soil quality and does not retain water well. After much trial and error, we learned native plants could thrive in these conditions and not much else.

The other side is a riparian wildlife corridor. Riparian indicates the vegetation found along waterways, in our case a small creek, and is the transition zone between an aquatic environment and the drier upland environment.  Here the soil is primarily moist even during the dry days of Okanagan summers.

Both sections provide an important habitat for snakes, amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles.

Then we had to figure out what’s good – what’s bad.  What’s invasive and how to manage that.  Who lives here and what should or should not be living here. Which animals (mostly deer and rabbits) will eat what plants and how do we discourage that while not disrupting passage through the corridor.

We decided to archive the diversity of the property through pictures and all photos are our own.