Designing and planning for your bird friendly garden!

Lets design a backyard today by keeping it simple, not hard! Once we have the basic design and installation we can add to it, learning as we go. Once we get the basics down and are attracting birds to our yard, and identified what birds we have, we can then add to our wish list of what other birds we want to try to attract and how we will achieve those goals.

7 kinds of bird feeders and the birds that like them.

1. 1. Finches and chickadees like tube feeders.

   2. Cardinals and grosbeaks like hopper feeders.

   3. Doves and sparrows like platform or tray feeders.

   4. Goldfinches and siskins like thistle or Niger feeders.

   5. Hummingbirds and orioles like nectar feeders.

   6. Orioles and tanagers like fruit feeders.

   7. Woodpeckers and nuthatches like suet feeders.

The type of bird seed is also important in deciding what type of bird you want to attract to your back yard. People will tend to buy the cheapest bird seed on the market because of price, not realizing that certain birds will go after certain seed because of the oil content.

The colorful birds that you are trying to attract will go after the high oil content that keeps their color pigmentation. Most birds will kick out the millet in the cheaper seed which will go to waste on the ground or will encourage a rodent problem.

On the market there are seed mixes that are labeled no waste. These blends are hull less so the seed won’t germinate if some were to land on the ground around the feeders. My suggestion for the first time birder is to get a tube niger feeder, a tube sunflower feeder and a humming bird feeder.

Now that you have a little information lets start your bird friendly garden!

1. Pick your area and focal point. If there are no plants in your area pick 2 from the list of trees below, at least 1 evergreen and 1 deciduous. Keep in mind the size that they will get in 5 yrs.

2. Balance, put something in there that will have year round interest for your eyes. A rock, a log or maybe some kind of outdoor art. A bird bath or some sort of water source is going to be needed year round. Maybe a pondless waterfall or fountain. That would be hard to run in the winter time but the wildlife would love it when it was running. The water source should be at least 10 feet away from everything so the birds can see what is going on around them in case of predators and freshen up if it’s a bird bath every couple days.

3. Pick a backdrop. A backdrop will define the area. It can be done with a fence, evergreens or hedge.

4. Pick your feeders, the first three I mentioned above will bring in enough birds to get started.

5. Once you have picked and planted the bigger plants like trees and shrubs, pick out some of the popular flowers and grasses for birds. If you pick out native ones or native varieties the birds will naturally come to your yard. Below are some of the plants I would recommend. Know that some of the varieties are designed to attract bugs and worms that are the birds food source.

Best Trees

• Hawthorn

• Oak

• Mountain Ash

• Rocky Mountain Juniper

• Austrian and Pinyon Pines

• Spruces,& Firs

• Hackberries

• Plums and flowering Crabapples

• Ginnala Maple, Hot Wings Maple

• Chokecherry, serviceberry and any fruit trees.

Best Shrubs

• Junipers

• Mugho Pine

• Globe Spruce

• Honeysuckles

• Snowberries

• Red and Yellowtwig Dogwoods

• Sumacs

• Coralberries

• Serviceberries

• Chokecherries

• A wide variety of shrubby plums, berries and fruit.

Best Ornamental Grasses

• Feather reed grass like Karl Forester, Overdam, Korean feather

• Varieties of switch grass like North Wind, Dallas Blues, Heavy Metal, and Shenandoah.

• Varieties of Miscanthus, Gramma grass and ornamental fescues.

Best Perennials

• Gallardia

• Shastas

• Flax

• Coreopsis

• Joe Pye Weed

• Butterfly Weed

• Butterfly Bush

• Vermillion Bluffs Sage

• Columbine

• Yarrow

• Mexican Hat

• Penstemon

• Coneflower

• Rudbeckia

• Sidalcia

• Cat Mint

Best Perennials for Hummingbirds

• All varieties of Agastache

• Red Birds in a Tree

• Salvias

• Penstemon

• Zachanaria

Best Annuals

• Cuphea

• Salvia

• Sunflowers

• Petunias

• Tithonia

• Zinnias

• Geraniums