Designing A Bird Friendly Garden

Ideal design for suburban residents with under utilized lawn space download full sun and partial sun bird friendly garden designs.

Designing a bird friendly garden. By mimicking the appearance of birds natural habitats you can instantly make your yard more appealing. A bird friendly landscape is never perfectly manicured and neatly trimmed. The key to designing a bird friendly garden is to create a multi layered habitat of ground covers small and medium shrubs i e.

They thrive in wide range of soil conditions in full sun or partial shade. Leaf litter longer grass and discarded brush piles are highly attractive to birds because they are rich sources of insects nesting material and shelter. Regular pruning increases density.

Not far away hummingbirds sipped from the flowers and nested in the hedges and cedar boughs. Garden styles are also being simplified and the dense shrubby vegetation that birds like isn t planted as much because people want simple low lying plants says holly. Look for natives that produce fruits nuts or seeds that birds favor such as california native toyon heteromeles arbutifolia shown oregon grape mahonia aquifolium and black elderberry sambucus nigra.

A bit closer to the house plant understory trees then large shrubs small shrubs and closer still groundcovers such as bunch grasses and wildflowers. Bird friendly building esign 5 the number of birds it will kill. Rarely seen birds flitted just outside the windows darting in and out of the canopy.

Use these simple principles to help you plan your garden. Create an environment with the proper feeders water sources and vegetation that beautiful songbirds will visit often. Bird friendly design is becoming recognized as part of sustainable design required.

Be sure to mimic the vertical layers of nearby native plant communities when designing your bird garden. The first time i thought about bird friendly yards i was living in a cabin nestled in the trees with a flower meadow on the south side. A handy rule of thumb is to plant tall forest interior trees along the periphery of your property.