Five Steps to Attracting Birds to Your Garden

Creating a garden that attracts birds is a relatively simple task. It consists of supplying them with three basic elements: food, cover, and water. Most homeowners start with, and sometimes end with, putting out a bird feeder with cheap bird seed. Then they wonder why only a few species of birds show up, why the birds leave the minute the seed is gone or they get discouraged with the cost of providing seed all the time. Home owners need to take a step back and start from the ground up if they want to be successful in attracting birds to their homes.

I believe a good gardener is a lazy gardener. So it is with attracting birds. If I can get birds to come to my yard all year long with little effort, I’ve done my job! To birds , the typical suburban yard is an unfriendly place. Manicured lawns, sparse plantings, and cats leave them with no food to eat, nowhere to hide and no reason to stay.

So here are my five steps for lazy gardeners to attract birds all year round.

Step 1 – Start from the ground up

I help people all the time with their landscapes and I will preach this ‘til the day I die. Before you buy a single pansy, work on your soil! Everyone wonders why they spend so much time and money fertilizing and using pesticides. Simple… your soil is not healthy! Homeowners are in such a rush to buy plants to beautify their yards that they forget to start with step one. It’s like painting your house before putting on the siding.

I am lazy, as I said and found out the hard way that a little time amending soil will save so much time and money in years to come. I guess you would call this part of organic or natural gardening. I just call it being lazy. It is July and I have not watered my yard once this year. Good soil is the key.

So why is this important for attracting birds? Two reasons: Healthy soil will produce healthy plants that bear a lot of food and shelter for the seed eating birds and many bird species eat insects found in healthy soil. No amount of bird seed will attract these other birds.

Before you plant and for years to come, add compost to your yard. Buy copious amounts from your local landscape supply company and dig it in. Or better yet, build your own compost bins and make your own. Top dress your lawn with it as well. You will never need to fertilize again. I go to my local coffee shop and get coffee grounds which earthworms love and are a good source of nitrogen. The worms aerate the soil and the worm castings provide nutrient for the plants. And the robins eat the worms.

Reevaluate your yard maintenance practices. Letting leaves turn to mulch instead of raking them in the fall and discarding them will keep the ground soil in healthy and is best in terms of maintaining a balanced ecosystem. I have to confess, I don’t like piles of leaves in my flower beds. So I leave the leaves in the beds all winter long but rake most of them up in the spring. This insulates the soil, adds richness to the soil and creates insect-rich areas for ground-foraging birds. In the spring I compost the remaining leaves.

Step 2 – Make peace with the bugs

Home owners need to get used to the fact that normal insect presence means a healthy yard for both plants and animals alike including children. A few holes in leaves will not hurt anything. Go out in the woods and look closely at the plants. Avoid using pesticides to nuke your yard. It kills both ‘pests’ and good insects. Many of the insects that thrive in a healthy garden are beneficial: that is, they eat other insects and keep the populations in check. And both provide food for insectivorous birds.

Birds will help control garden pests that eat plants, along with insects such as mosquitoes. Instead of waging war against pests and diseases with an arsenal of chemicals, natural or organic gardening nudges the ecosystem into a healthy balance. A poisoned insect will in turn poison the bird. Another solution is to use more native plants which will reduce the need for pesticide use since the native plants are resistant to local pests and diseases.

 Step 3 – Select your plants thoughtfully

The plants you put in your yard provide food and cover for the birds. What you plant will determine which birds frequent your yard. If at all possible, plants should provide year-round food supply including seeds, berries, nuts, etc. Winterberry is an excellent plant for bluebirds. Planting a diverse selection helps ensure that a variety of food sources is always available

Deciduous plants, whose leaves drop off in winter, generally bear the most fruit, nuts, and seeds for wildlife and they offer shady, leafy nesting sites in the spring and summer. Evergreens offer a good source of berries and seed-filled cones and offer year-round shelter, protection, and breeding sites. Flower beds can also provide seeds and nectar for birds. Homeowners should be aware that some plants may not provide food directly, but by being host plants to insects, they will attract birds as well. One of my favorites is Ruella, the Mexican Petunia.

Reduce the area occupied by the lawn. Wide expanses of turf grass are sterile habitats and take a lot of maintenance. However, edges between habitats will increase bird species diversity in your yard much like it does in nature. Many bird species are attracted to edge habitat, such as hummingbirds, phoebes, titmice, and orioles. They utilize the open flying such as lawns, paths and patios, which allow them easy access to the lush plants along the borders. So you can have your lawn and Eden too.

Step 4 – Provide Water for Birds

This is one of the easiest but most overlooked aspects of attracting birds to your home. Providing water year-round is an essential element and does not have to be expensive or time consuming.

Water can be made available using almost anything – a bird bath, pond, water feature or even a dog bowl. Three things to keep in mind. Birds do not usually like water more than two or three inches deep. So low water bowls or bird baths are easiest. Put a few rocks in the bird bath that stick out of the water to give the birds (and butterflies) a place to stand.

Running or dripping water will attract more birds than a bowl of water. In my yard I have a small bubbler as well as a bird bath that I hooked a drip irrigation emitter to. In this way the bird bath is automatically filled and the sound of dripping water attracts more birds. As I said, I am a lazy gardener so the automatic refilling bird bath is the only way I keep on top of the watering in the summer.

Lastly, most people forget water freezes in the winter so put out fresh water every day or buy one of those birdbath heaters that keep the water in liquid form.

Step 5 – Bird feeders

This is the step where most people start, but I think it is truly the least important. If your landscaping is done right it will provide all the needs of the birds as nature intended. However, supplemental bird feeders do concentrate large numbers of birds where you can see and appreciate them. And I will admit, I can sit for hours watching the birds at the feeders.

Pick your bird seed carefully to match the birds in your yard and if needed get squirrel proof bird feeders. I have a few bird feeders in my yard and welcome the squirrels. They are fun to watch and are good lookouts for cats.

Hummingbird feeders while not a necessity are a great addition. In the late winter, early spring, food is not as available for migrating hummingbirds. So providing a feeder is a great way to attract early visitors.

You will notice I spent the least amount of time on step five. Let’s face it, it is not brain surgery to slap up a bird feeder. And in my opinion it has the least amount of benefits. Provide a healthy yard and you will have all the birds you could ever want. Then sit back, be lazy, and enjoy.

Other Bird Articles:
Feed the Wild Birds, Feed your Soul
The Indigo Bunting: The Smallest Sparrow Warbler
Top 10 Most Common Blue Birds in Your Garden
It’s Migration Season for House Wrens

Originally posted 2009-07-08 11:35:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Tagged as: attracting birds, insect-eating birds, seed-eating birds