One of the best ways to attract wildlife into your garden is to grow plants that provide them with natural food sources. As it turns out, several plants will keep birds fed with seeds that they love, happily visiting your garden all year long.
Knowing how to attract birds to your garden has several benefits, from improving the space’s ecosystem to helping your plants grow more successfully. While there are some expert-recommended foods you can put out in your garden, garden professionals suggest growing specific plant species that will naturally provide seed options for birds.
Ideally, the best plants and flowers for attracting birds furnish edible seeds or fruit and possibly nestbuilding materials. It’s best to opt for hardy perennials native to your region, which should thrive in most gardens.
In the U.K., if you’re looking to keep your garden busy with feathered friends this year, here are seven plants to grow to ensure your visitors are fed their favorite seeds with minimal effort.
Seed and berry plants native to the U.K.
1. Love-lies-bleeding
As one of the best flower seeds to sow in April, springtime is the perfect season to add this plant to your garden. And the birds will thank you for it.
2. Common Knapweed
It’s no secret that wildflowers are amazing for supporting wildlife, which is why we see them continue to be popular with the meadowscaping trend.
If you love to include wildflowers in your garden and at the same time provide valuable autumnal seeds for goldfinches, then growing Common Kapweed is the answer. Native to the UK, this hardy perennial can be sown directly on well-draining soil in autumn or early spring.
3. Sunflowers
Once you’ve mastered when to plant sunflowers and how to keep them supported, they’re a low-maintenance addition to your garden that really packs a punch.
Extremely popular with all gardeners, especially when you’re encouraging young children to garden, sunflowers germinate quickly, grow rapidly to grow into tall plants with large and cheerful yellow heads.
4. Teasels
Teasels are a fantastic plant to keep around when wildlife need a little extra help during autumn, when food is more scarce.
For wildlife-friendly gardens, growing teasels creates a natural bug hotel for bees, butterflies and moths as well as a valuable food source for goldfinches during the winter months. Robust, native biennials which self-seed prolifically, teasels grow quickly to form tall, spiny flowering stems over two meters in height, making them best suited to larger gardens and the backs of borders.
5. Honeysuckle
As one of the best fragrant garden plants to scent outdoor spaces, it’s no wonder birds and other wildlife happily flock to honeysuckle.
Honeysuckle is a perfect choice for wildlife-friendly gardens, as it produces sweet-smelling, nectar-rich flowers that attract insects and birds that feed on them. Later in the season, honeysuckle develops berries that provide an additional food source, while its climbing growth also offers shelter and nesting spots.
6. Ivy
Whilst you might want to get rid of ivy naturally from your fences and walls, leaving the plant to grow in appropriate areas of your garden can be a big help to birds looking for food.
Often overlooked, ivy is hugely valuable to wildlife. Its late-season flowers provide nectar when little else is available, supporting insects that birds feed on, and its winter berries offer nourishment during colder months. Dense foliage also creates important shelter.
7. Holly
As one of the fastest-growing shrubs, holly is a common choice for homeowners looking for privacy and space-filling in the garden.
Known for its glossy leaves and bright berries, holly provides a vital winter food source when other options are scarce, and its dense structure also offers birds shelter from harsh weather conditions.
It turns out most of the plants that are great for privacy are also perfect shelters for wildlife, especially birds.
What plants do birds like in the UK?
Of course, each country comes with its own native species in both plants and birds. So how can you keep your local birds happy? “In the UK, birds like plants that produce berries and seeds that they can use for food during the colder months,” explains Richard Barker, horticulture expert and Commercial Director at LBS Horticulture. “Dense, berry-producing shrubs are a particular favorite, as they can also function as shelter when nesting and offer protection from predators.”
What shouldn’t you feed birds?
It’s important to know the foods you can and cannot leave out for wildlife, both for birds specifically and other visitors that frequent your garden.
- Bread: “Although bread is not harmful, it is a bulky, low-nutritional-value food. This means that if birds eat the bread put out for them, they are less likely to eat the nutrient-dense food they actually need to survive,” explains Richard.
- Fruit pits and seeds: Whilst birds feed on fruit in the wild, there are many fruit pits and seeds that can contain traces of a cyanide compound that can make smaller birds ill.
- Salt: Richard says, “Salt is in many processed foods people may leave out for birds; you should not give birds food with high salt content, as they cannot process high levels of sodium.”
- Desiccated coconut: “Although dried coconut can be in bird food blends, desiccated coconut has a lower moisture content and should not be given to birds. This is because it can be fatal as it can swell in their stomachs once ingested,” he finishes.
Another way to increase the amount of wildlife in your garden is to prioritize adding plants for pollinators, which will invite butterflies and bees into your space. Which, of course, will help encourage your florals to grow more and bloom for longer.
Source: ©Woman&Home
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