Many people enjoy the dulcet sounds of birds
singing and chirping in their yards. Birds are beautiful to
look at, and they provide many with an appreciation for nature.
There are many benefits associated with attracting
birds to the landscape, but in order to experience these benefits, the
birds first need to be attracted. It is possible to attract
birds to your property by following a few simple design principles,
and by choosing plants for your landscape that naturally attract
birds.
Birdfeeders
are old staples for those who wish to see birds in their
yards. When using feeders, they should be placed conveniently,
and they should also be large enough to hold two to three days’
worth of food. Placing birdfeeders in various parts of the
yard can help attract more birds into your landscape. However,
the birdfeeders should serve as supplements to the various
plants in your yard that provide food and shelter to encourage
birds to think of your yard as home.
The first thing to remember when designing a landscape to
attract birds is that your design should provide shelter
to protect birds from the elements or from predators. Evergreens
are great in this role, as they often provide plenty of space
for a bird to crawl into, but they are very difficult for predators
to penetrate. Additionally, they can be thick enough to provide
adequate and desirable shelter. Evergreen trees and bushes,
moreover, look nice with just about any home, and they are
fairly hardy and easy to take care of. Other plants that provide
good shelter to birds include other woody plants. Features
like decks and birdhouses also provide nice places for birds
to shelter.
The
next thing that should be done is to provide plants that
offer a consistent food supply. These plantings should offer
a great deal of food, and produce enough food to meet the birds’
needs, with the help of birdfeeders. Additionally, there should
be a variety of plants that offer seeds and fruits at various
times so that the food supply lasts for an extended period
of time. Holly plants (if you use blue holly, you will need
both a blue boy and a blue girl in order for there to be any
berries), crabapple trees, sunflowers, and other plants that
produce berries and seed are excellent choices. Many of these
plants are very attractive and can be made to look good in
any design, besides being a source of food for winged creatures.
Another landscape principle to keep in mind while selecting
plants that attract birds is to select plants that
attract insects. Most scented flowers attract insects, and this means
that your yard will attract birds that eat insects. Not only
are there many beautiful flowers, like the gumbo-limbo and
roses, that attract insects, but these also in turn smell very
nice. You can have a fragrant yard, as well as one that is
really for the birds. Among your choices for insect-attracting
flowers, choose some that bloom during the spring migrations.
Then you will be sure to get birds on their way through town,
headed north.
Finally, there
are landscape features that are not plant-related. These features, other than birdfeeders and birdhouses, can
also mean the difference between a yard bursting with birdsong
and one that is depressingly quiet. These features
are water features. Birds like to have places where they can bathe and
drink. There is no need for a big water feature; a small birdbath
or basin is often more than sufficient. Birds do prefer moving
water, so small features that circulate water, or even water
in gently sloping basins or troughs can be very attractive
to birds.
It does not need to cost a lot of extra money to attract birds
to your landscape. There are plenty of discount stores that
offer acceptable birdhouses, feeders, and water features at
low costs. Additionally, if you buy seeds or starts, you can
get your plants for less. Birds do not require anything really
special. For the most, part you just need to keep them in mind
if you want them part of your landscape. Much of the time attractive
plants and features that you would likely have purchased anyway
can be incorporated to make your landscape more pleasing to
the ear.
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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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