Davis's mom, Heidi (Davis is her youngest; Bernardo and Lucas, twin brothers, are his pals), grew up on a 500-acre farm in Maine. "It was woods beyond woods," she says. "I wanted to give my children some of what I had, to teach them to be still in nature, to pay attention." So, she dug up the border of her lawn and laid in splashes of red and orange flowers to rope in birds and butterflies. She built a pond. She planted fruit trees. "It only takes a teensy space of plants for animals to make communities. The trick is to provide their four basic needs: food, water, cover, and places to raise their young."

Sow the Seeds
Plants are the triple-crown winner of habitats: They provide cover, a place to raise babies, and food (orioles love Chinese red hat vine). Here's a saying from the NWF: "Hummingbirds like ice cream cones and butterflies like pizza," meaning that hummers prefer tube-shaped flowers like honeysuckle and columbine, while butterflies enjoy flat flowers like zinnia (left) and phlox. Check out NWF's Web site for a list of "host species."

"When we send our children out with a watering can, they are part of creating a habitat," says Heidi. "Then the plants bloom, and the kids get to see who comes to visit."