If you love reptiles, then you will love growing a reptile garden. If the idea of snakes, lizards, and other slithery, leathery creatures makes you smile, a reptile garden will bring you oodles of joy. Growing a reptile garden to attract reptiles to your yard or to make a nice habitat for reptiles you already own is a very easy thing to do.
Reptiles Have Special Needs
Reptiles are coldblooded, so they need to find ways to stay warm. Most reptiles do this by finding sunny places to rest during hot afternoons. If you want to have a reptile garden that can keep your pets warm, you must provide lots of great places for them to sun themselves. Provide your reptile garden with sand areas. Sand reflects the sun and holds in the warmth of the day long after the sun sets. Lizards and snakes love to recline on the sand and are fun to look at in contrast to the light color of sand. You can even have fun with your garden and use multi colored playground sand in places.
Rocks also make fantastic places for reptiles to sun themselves. Consider planting a reptile garden with a rock theme. Simply arrange rocks of all sizes from small pebbles at the base to large flagstones and boulders. You can even plant different kinds of foliage and flowers in between the rocks. Make sure that you provide several little hiding spots in the rocks for your reptile friends to duck into and call home.
Even though reptiles are cold blooded and most people think of them as dry, they need water. Provide a pond, bath, swimming pool, puddle or even small waterfall in your reptile garden and your favorite slithery creatures will thank you. It is very easy to incorporate a water feature into a setting of plants, making a gorgeous spot in your yard to observe your reptile friends.
If you plant to have turtles in your reptile garden, lettuce is a great plant to grow in your yard. It is a favorite of most turtles and provides them with water, which is vital for their survival. Do some research on other greens that turtles like and plant them in various places in the yard. You don’t have to plant them all together. It is actually more fun to have lettuce peeking out in several places in the yard. Make sure that you never spray your turtle’s lettuce with pesticide and replant lettuce seed every few weeks for a continual supply.
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