Songbirds sound so cheerful and are a delight to have in your garden. Learn how to attract songbirds to your garden with these plants.
Birds offer a lot of benefits to your garden.
Attracting birds to your garden helps with controlling pests like spiders, mosquitoes, and aphids. Birds feed on pests and insects, and eliminate the need to use pesticides made with harsh chemicals.
They also pollinate the flowers, helping your garden to flourish and be rich with fruits, vegetables, and more flowers.
Birds like hummingbirds and songbirds sip the nectar from the plants. This adds color and boosts the extra blooms of your plants and flowers.
There are several ways to attract songbirds to your garden: Adding fresh, clean water, installing birdhouses, and providing food through bird feeders.
But one of the best and cheapest ways to attract these birds is by planting plants they love.
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Attracting Songbirds to Your Yard
Creating a landscape to provide food, water, and shelter for birds can greatly benefit your garden. But when starting out, you’ll need to keep this in mind: you need to mimic the natural habitat where the birds live.
When starting a landscape for birds, you should:
Understand What You Have
Look at your yard and plan where your plants will go. How they will flow naturally and look best.
Create a map that shows the number of shrubs, trees, and features in your garden. Mark which areas have adequate sunlight to low shade. Identify which areas have low to better drainage.
Minimize The Lawn
Increase the number of trees and shrubs in your garden to mimic a forest rather than an open space. Replicate the look of their natural habitat to attract birds to your yard.
Provide Protection
Do you have an open garden? Is there any protection from storms or winds? Add a fence or a hedge to protect the birds.
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Know Which Plants Are Best For Your Garden
Look for a wide diversity of plants that birds of all species will like. Before choosing which plants to use, check your growing zone. Know what the plant needs and how big it will be once fully grown.
Shrubs are a great option. They bear fruits and leaves that the birds eat yet they do not take too much space in your garden.
Food
Birds do not only feed on insects, they also eat berries and fruits from plants. Some shrubs and flowers also produce nectar that birds enjoy. During winter, some plants provide seeds for the birds to eat.
Shelter
Trees and shrubs with denser leaves and branches are a great shelter for birds. They are also important during summer as they provide shade for the birds.
Water
Songbirds can sip nectar directly from the flowers for refreshment. Those with larger leaves can collect small amounts of water for the birds to drink. There are also some animals which rub themselves against damp leaves for a quick bath.
Best Plants For Songbirds
Different birds like different plants. However, if you use these shrubs and plants in your yard, you can easily attract birds and make your garden more bird-friendly.
Holly
Holly plants thrive during autumn. The female plant produces berries, which songbirds such as redwings, blackbirds, and fieldfares feed on.
Honeysuckle
When you don’t have adequate space in your garden, planting honeysuckle is ideal. The berries that the plant produces is considered food for bullfinches and thrushes. The flowers release a sweet scent that attracts insects for food for the birds.
Sunflower
Sunflowers are not only pretty to look at, but the seeds also produce oil that can be used for beauty and skincare regimens. They’re also favorite seeds eaten by songbirds like nuthatches.
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Sumac
A part of the cashew family, sumac produces berries that act as food for songbirds. The pointy leaves of elm-leaved sumac are used by birds as shelter. This type of Sumac does not cause itchy rashes like the poison ivy kind.
Guelder rose
Best grown between November to March, a guelder rose produces a cluster of berries that the birds like bullfinches and mistletoe thrushes love to eat. They’re excellent hedging shrubs too.
Juniper
The berries produced by a juniper plant acts like a magnet that attracts birds. They are eaten mostly by eastern bluebirds and wild turkeys. This shrub provides a steady source of food for the birds. It also gives shelter from harsh and cold weather.
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Additional Tips For Adding PLANTS For Birds To Your Garden
- Select the plants that will work best for the soil, sunlight, and water levels of your garden.
- Prune the branches and leaves of your shrubs and trees. Project the width of the plants to ensure that each and every plant will have adequate space to grow.
- Use the plants to connect the other parts of the garden. This will provide shelter that the birds can use.
Adding these plants to your garden is a great way to make it bird-friendly.
These birds help not only in pollinating the garden, but they also prevent insects and pests, which can in turn prevent diseases that insects carry from plant to plant.
