Want to attract birds and other small animals to your yard? Create bird-friendly landscaping with plants that provide shelter, a natural food source, and even water. I'll show you the plants I'm growing to help backyard wildlife.
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I have been tackling one garden project after another. Even while it's early spring, there's still a lot to be done. After planting early spring seeds, creating an herb garden bed, a strawberry patch, and a fruit container garden, next on my list was adding some bird-friendly landscaping along the side of our shed. It's an area that we've already made pretty bird-friendly. We planted small oak trees, added a bird bath, and hung bird houses and a feeder on the side of the shed.
However, it bothered me that we had unused space underneath the birdhouses and bird feeder. Instead of beneficial plants, the area was filled with decorative rocks - just decorative rocks. So I decided to temporarily remove the rocks and add bird-friendly plants that would double as both shelter and a natural food source.
I did a little research and once again shopped through FastGrowingTrees.com for plants. I ended up getting three Prairie Blues Little Bluestem Grass plants and created a plan for this area.
Little Bluestem Grass is a native grass that can thrive in a variety of soil types and temperatures. The foliage changes colors with each season and when it goes to seed in the fall, it provides a food source for birds.
Along with the Prairie Blues Little Bluestem Grass, I also wanted to add some Autumn Joy Sedum I had in pots to this area. While it's not a native plant, its leaves provide a water source in the heat of summer. In the fall, the seed heads provide another good source of food.
At the last minute, I also decided to add a couple hellebore flowers to this area, too. While they're toxic to humans and other animals, they're safe for birds. Their leaves even provide shelter during the winter.
How to Create Bird-Friendly Landscaping
The first step in planting my bird-friendly landscaping was doing some post-winter cleanup. Along with removing the decorative rocks (pictured above in a photo from last spring), I was also cleaning seed shells that dropped from the bird feeder (a place that was seriously hard to even get to when we had so much snow on the ground).
Once the area was cleaned, I added a couple bags of garden soil and placed the plants into position.
I dug the holes and added a mix of earthworm castings. Then, I planted each plant in place, making sure to tuck them into each hole, and covered them with more garden soil.
I didn't bother watering since the soil was pretty damp to begin with, plus we were expecting rain overnight. We went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to add the rocks back to this area. Ultimately, we put the rocks back for extra drainage
I'm really looking forward to seeing how these plants fill in and create a natural habitat for the birds and other small animals, like the rabbits.
Save 20% on These Plants and More!
If you'd like to learn more about bird-friendly landscaping, I recommend getting the book Garden Secrets for Attracting Birds. There is a lot of information about plants and why they're beneficial to different types of birds. And if you'd like to add some bird-friendly landscaping to your yard, visit FastGrowingTrees for the plants I've mentioned and more. New customers will receive 20% off using the code FGTHOLOKA20.
