If images of bright yellow goldfinches, black-capped chickadees, and vivid red cardinals in your backyard excite you, then a Garden for the Birds may be the theme for you. Besides being fun to watch, birds can be a powerful garden ally, because they eat harmful bugs such as cabbage worms, whiteflies, aphids, and grubs. Your flower garden can serve as a vital feeding station and sanctuary for our winged friends. And you will have the helpfulness of hungry, flitting birds to combat pests! The key is to provide food, water, and shelter for the birds. If you do that, you can enjoy a symphony of birdsong in your backyard. What a lovely and useful theme garden.
A surefire way to attract birds is to have a diverse mix of native flowers and berries for birds to enjoy. The more variety you offer, the better. While berried trees and bushes are a bird’s delight, the right flowers attract them also. Birds like bright red, yellow, orange, and white. Native flowers such as Queen Anne’s lace, black-eyed Susan, native asters, goldenrods, and yarrows provide seeds, nectar, and/or insects for birds to feed on. Other seed-bearing flowers that birds like include cosmos, sunflowers, zinnias, daisies, coreopsis, and marigold. These attract finches, sparrows, cardinals, nuthatches, and towhees in the fall. Another tip: avoid cutting down dead flower stalks with seeds attached, because seed-eating visitors like the dark-eyed junco, will benefit.
One of the most important elements to include in your bird habitat is water. Birds, like humans, need fresh, clean water to drink and bathe in. A properly sited birdbath, with a mister or dripper added, will attract a greater variety of birds than a feeder! Place a 3-foot-high bath in an open, sunny area that is somewhat sheltered. Here, birds can feel safe from lurking predators such as cats. Fill the bath with one or two inches of water and no more, because birds will not go into deeper water. Make sure the interior of the birdbath is consistently clean with no slippery surfaces—this is important. Clean it out often. A small birdbath dripper adds movement and sound to the water, which will get the birds’ attention. Soon the birds will be splashing away.