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Garden-Fountains Coupon: The Best Gifts with Storewide Savings Exclusively for YOU!
Valentine's Day is just around the corner!
Give someone you love a gift to help them enjoy their home and garden all year-long!
Valentine's Day is just around the corner!
Give someone you love a gift to help them enjoy their home and garden all year-long!
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If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about what types of trees, shrubs or other plantings you can use to feed birds through the winter without having to put out and maintain seed, then this article is a wealth of information. Winterberries, Deciduous Holly or flowers such as the purple cornflower, to name a few, can all become part of a bird-buffet that will attract them and give them seeds and nutrition year-round.
There was a time when birdseed, suet cakes, mealworms and home-brewed nectar were not a part of the backyard birds’ dining table.
And the birds did just fine. For them, “buy fresh, buy local” was a necessity long before it became a trend for humans.
Seeds and nectar were plucked and sipped straight from the flowers, and berries were yanked from the branches. Protein came not in the form of cakes and store-bought mealworms, but from local insects that burrow and fly in the garden.
To learn more about how to feed songbirds the old-fashioned way, attend a program called “Gardening for Songbirds” with Norfolk Botanical Garden’s senior horticulturist Tom Houser. The program will be from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday at the garden.
Houser likes to spoil the birds as much as most of us do, so he also will talk about putting out nest boxes and the likes of seeds, suet and mealworms. A diversity of foods from sunflower seed to thistle and suet is important, Houser said.
“It depends on what they want,” he added. “Spoil them.”
But Houser will talk mostly about native plants that sustain all kinds of wildlife in the garden – not only birds, but mammals and, most importantly, insects, a favorite bird food. Houser expects a lot from the plants that help wildlife. They should have not one, but two or three attributes. Take, for example, the purple coneflower.
“Bees and butterflies nectar on it, and birds dine on its seeds,” Houser said. “It’s also a pretty plant in the garden.”
But the winter garden is every bit as important to the birds as the summer garden. If the weather is good, Houser will take the class for a walk around the garden to look for plants that birds love, including a bird “hot spot,” as Houser calls it.
That hot spot is the Deciduous Holly bed, part of the Discovery Grove at the garden. On a recent visit, beautiful red winterberries created a rosy haze along the pathway. Winterberries belie the notion that natives are not pretty, he said.
Winterberries are spectacular with red berries lining their leafless branches. Straight native winterberries are too large for some small gardens, Houser noted, but now there are many varieties, including compact plants that are just 3 to 4 feet tall.
And the birds did just fine. For them, “buy fresh, buy local” was a necessity long before it became a trend for humans.
Seeds and nectar were plucked and sipped straight from the flowers, and berries were yanked from the branches. Protein came not in the form of cakes and store-bought mealworms, but from local insects that burrow and fly in the garden.
To learn more about how to feed songbirds the old-fashioned way, attend a program called “Gardening for Songbirds” with Norfolk Botanical Garden’s senior horticulturist Tom Houser. The program will be from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday at the garden.
Houser likes to spoil the birds as much as most of us do, so he also will talk about putting out nest boxes and the likes of seeds, suet and mealworms. A diversity of foods from sunflower seed to thistle and suet is important, Houser said.
“It depends on what they want,” he added. “Spoil them.”
But Houser will talk mostly about native plants that sustain all kinds of wildlife in the garden – not only birds, but mammals and, most importantly, insects, a favorite bird food. Houser expects a lot from the plants that help wildlife. They should have not one, but two or three attributes. Take, for example, the purple coneflower.
“Bees and butterflies nectar on it, and birds dine on its seeds,” Houser said. “It’s also a pretty plant in the garden.”
But the winter garden is every bit as important to the birds as the summer garden. If the weather is good, Houser will take the class for a walk around the garden to look for plants that birds love, including a bird “hot spot,” as Houser calls it.
That hot spot is the Deciduous Holly bed, part of the Discovery Grove at the garden. On a recent visit, beautiful red winterberries created a rosy haze along the pathway. Winterberries belie the notion that natives are not pretty, he said.
Winterberries are spectacular with red berries lining their leafless branches. Straight native winterberries are too large for some small gardens, Houser noted, but now there are many varieties, including compact plants that are just 3 to 4 feet tall.
In winter, flocks of robins and cedar waxwings dine on the garden’s winterberries. On the visit, a mockingbird perched high atop one of the bushes, claiming it as his own berry bush.
Some local foods ripen and taste better after a frost. Take persimmons, kale and kiwis. Houser has a theory that many birds also like their berries after they have gone through a couple of frosts to sweeten and soften up.
Houser pointed out the importance of leaving leaf mulch through the winter and not cutting back plants. Doing so provides space for wintering insects. Some insects burrow in hollow stems or underground to winter over.
Leaf litter is also a great source of food for birds in winter. You can hear and observe white-throated sparrows and other birds scratching in leaves, looking for both insects and seeds, he said.
As we went around the garden, Houser pointed out several berry shrubs and related some surprising observations. For example, one day, he looked up and saw a flock of flickers high in a southern Magnolia tree pulling the red berries from the pods. Who knew?
Sometimes you will see birds dining on non-native berries and you might think it would be a good bush to plant.
“But not often,” he said. “The birds may have to eat, say, five times as much to get the same nutrition as they would get from a native.”
Another good choice, he said, are wax myrtles, with their waxy white seeds. Their berries are a winter food source for the yellow-rumped warbler, he said, but they also are a good shrub for the home garden.
“Wax myrtles are a great all-around plant,” Houser explained. “It can be used as a screen, is an evergreen and adapts to all kinds of soils. It’s easy to get along with.”
The list went on. He talked about chokeberries, beautyberries, coral honeysuckle, serviceberries and blueberries, all of which play several year-round roles for wildlife in the garden.
Participants in the class will be given a copy of the new book “Native Plants for Southeast Virginia.” The full-color book showcases a variety of plants for this area that will guide you in raising a bounty of fresh and local foods for your birds.
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