Horizontal structure is an important principle to plan when constructing habitats, as it is only natural that the landscape will gradually change over time due to the nature of wildlife gardening requiring less human maintenance such as mowing. Vegetation changes occur in successions, with a meadow eventually becoming a forest in its final stage after gradually being replaced with woody species; to achieve horizontal structure, vegetation must be arranged and interspersed in these different stages with some proximity, so that different wildlife species will be supported.
