Attracting birds to your garden

Attracting birds to your garden

One of the greatest joys of gardening is the pleasure you get when birds, butterflies, and other wildlife start visiting your yard. Birds and butterflies are particularly enjoyable, because they’re beautiful to watch while they’re going about their business.

If you like the idea of attracting birds to your garden, it’s easy enough to do. Just plant some trees, bushes, shrubs, and flowers which are naturally attractive to them!

Trees which produce some type of berry - even berries which are not edible by humans - are almost always guaranteed to bring birds to your yard and garden. The birds will particularly be attracted during the winter time months, because finding food that time of year is more difficult. And once you’ve started attracting birds to your garden, they’re more likely to keep coming back each year.

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Garden Tip...

It is a mistake to try to stimulate into growth, by the use of fertilizers, those plants which give every indication of being sickly or stunted; they will make such a plant sicker, if they do not kill it outright. If guano is used in potting soil, it should be in the proportion of one pound to every bushel of soil.
~ James Sheehan
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A crabapple tree is an excellent example of a fruit bearing tree which attracts birds. The Sugar Tyme Crabapple species will actually help to attract up to thirty different species of birds to your yard because it bears fruit throughout the fall and winter.

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Garden Tip...

There are many different species and varieties of Lilies, but none approach those known as Japan Lilies in the beauty and variety of their flowers, and their exquisite fragrance. They are perfectly hardy, and the fall is the proper time to plant them. If good strong bulbs are set out in the ground in October or November, planted about eight inches deep, they will throw up strong shoots the following summer, and bloom freely. The flowers increase in size and beauty with the age of the bulb, and this should be left to grow undisturbed in the same spot for five or six years; afterwards, if desired, the bulbs can be dug up, the offshoots removed, and the old bulbs reset, and they will do better than ever. Any of the young bulbs that have been removed can be planted out in the ground, and in a few years will form good blooming bulbs. The time to perform this work is in the fall.
~ James Sheehan
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Dogwood trees are another wonderful choice for attracting birds. The Cornelian-cherry Dogwood produces deep red berries in late July or August, which the birds feed on through the winter.

If you don’t have room for trees in the yard though, try some bushes and flowers instead. The American Cranberrybush for example, grows red berries through the winter, which can attract up to thirty-five different types of birds. Spicebush, St. John’s Wort, Bayberry, and Sumac are examples of other bushes and shrubs which attract a wide variety of birds to the garden too.

Keep in mind that any type of tree, shrub, vine, or plant which produces fruit will attract many birds to your garden. So if you’re trying to grow fruit for yourself or your family such as grapes, strawberries, or blackberries, you might actually find yourself having to fight the birds for the fruit.

If flowers are your preference, then anything which produces nectar of some kind will help attract birds to your garden. Flowers which have a tubular shape to them are especially attractive to hummingbirds, as is the color yellow in large masses.

Honeysuckle vines are particularly attractive to both hummingbirds and bluebirds, and Roses, Sunflowers, or Butterfly weed will attract both birds and butterflies to your garden too.

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