Make your yard “bird-friendly” if you want to attract birds. The best way is to fulfill some of their basic needs – food, water and shelter.
Having plants that provide both food and shelter is the most natural way of inviting them into your yard. Since birds are either insectivores or granivores (they eat insects or seeds), plant perennial and annual flowers that attract insects, and trees and shrubs that produce either seeds or small fruit.
Trees, conifers, bushes, dense hedges and shrubs provide a safe haven and places to perch and rest, as well as possible nesting locations.
Plants
Deciduous trees | Speckled Alder, birch, red oak, maple, white ash, American beech, hazel, crab-apple |
Conifers | White spruce, juniper, Canadian yew, tamarack, white pine, red pine, eastern hemlock, balsam fir, cedar |
Fruit bushes | Saskatoon berry, hawthorn, Japanese bearberry, blueberry, cherry, honeysuckle, dogwood, cotoneaster, winged euonymus, raspberry, current, winter berry (holly), blackberry, Russian olive, mountain-ash, white elderberry, golden elderberry, red elderberry, highbush cranberry |
Perennials | Yarrow, columbine flowers, aster, blue thistle, coreopsis, purple coneflowers, daylilies, gayfeathers, cardinal flowers, heliopsis, lemon balm, bee balm, foamflowers |
Annuals | Cosmos, fuchsia, royal impatiens, sunflowers, zinnia |
To attract hummingbirds
Some plants more specifically attract colobris.
| Perennials | Annuals | Shrubs | Climbing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monarde Bleeding heart Creeping Bugle Columbine Digital Hollyhock Phlox | Dahlia Fuchsia Geranium Gladiolus Lantana Nasturtium Nicotine Snapdragon Petunia Zinnia | Azalea Honeysuckle Hibiscus Caragana | Morning glory Spanish bean Climbing honeysuckle Trumpet Creeper |
To attract fruit-eating birds
Birds love fruit, it is known. Here is the list of plants that are the delight of fruit-eating birds.
| Annuals | Perennials | Deciduous trees | Conifers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amaranth Aster Cosmos Knapweed Sunflower Purslane Pinks Marigold Poppy Zinnia | Echinacea Rudbeckie Heliopsis all ornamental grasses | Maple Ash Birch Oak | White spruce Larch Pine Hemlock Juniper Thuja Fir |
To attract seed-eating birds
Here is the list of irresistible plants for seed-eating birds.
| Trees | Shrubs | Climbing |
|---|---|---|
| Apple tree Cherry tree Mountain ash Hawthorn Bohemian olive tree | Cotoneaster Serviceberry Cherry tree Black chokeberry Red-backed dogwood Rustic rose Sumac Viburnum Elderberry Honeysuckle | Celast Parthenocissus Grape vine |
Don't prune or cut back your shrubs and perennials too much in the fall: the birds will eat from them all winter long!
