Every winter, generous homeowners spend hundreds of dollars on bird seed and endless hours maintaining bird feeders. However, there is a much better option that is literally growing outside your doorstep! Natural bird feeding plants save money AND support more bird species than any other stored-bought feeders could offer. They help to create complex ecosystems.
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Check PriceWhy Natural Bird Feeding is Always Better Than Artificial Feeders
While bird feeders can spread disease and require constant maintenance and cleaning to avoid those dangers, and can create dependency in birds, natural plants and trees offer shelter from predators and the elements, and year round habitat and shelter to a variety of birds and their entire communities, for all of their natural foraging and healthy habits by providing seeds at different heights and throughout their foliage.
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Understand when and what birds need in order to identify what plants provide these necessary resources.
Coneflowers: The Best Goldfinch Attractor
Goldfinches go crazy for the seed heads of purple coneflowers during the winter! Each flower head has tons of seeds that have the oils goldfinches need to survive the winter. After blooming, don’t cut the stems! Brown centers become stocked bird restaurants for months.
Black-Eyed Susans: Year-Round Fuel
Although these bright, yellow flowers may disappear by fall, their dark centers turn into goldmines of nutrition. Chickadees, siskins, and finches eat from the seed heads, often coming back to the same plants to feed. The stems also become great perches for the birds while they eat.
Sunflowers: Nature's Design for Bird Feeders
Sunflowers can produce 1,000 seeds or more. That means meals for multiple families of birds for weeks! The thick, strong stems support larger birds like jays and cardinals. Mix different types of sunflowers to keep harvest times spread throughout the winter.
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Joe-Pye Weed: Specialist in Tiny Seeds
This local wildflower makes lots of tiny seeds that are good food for small songbirds. The soft seed heads last through tough weather, and continue to slowly release seeds. Juncos and sparrows especially enjoy searching through these small food sources.
Solidago: Der missverstandene Vogelhäuschen
Goldenrods may get a bad rep due to allergies (which is really due to ragweed); however, they give important nectar to pollinators in the fall and provide lots of seeds for winter bird feeding plumes. The seeds sustain small birds during winter months.
Wild Asters: A Life Saver For The End Of The Season
Native asters bloom later in the summer after most flower species have completed their blooming cycle. They produce small seeds that attract feeding finches and chickadees. The plants' branching structure provides natural feeding platforms, and the stems offer superb nesting material for birds next season.
Switchgrass: Provides Shelter and Food
This ornamental grass has a dual purpose. Its seed heads provide food for ground-feeding birds such as juncos and sparrows. Dense clumps of this grass offer essential shelter during the winter. Birds can roost in warm microclimates formed by the grass because snow often does not penetrate the grass fortresses.
Kleiner Blaustem: Kraftpaket der Prärien
This native grass produces plenty of seeds that stay pretty and copper colored all winter. Ground feeding birds scratch through the base of the grass to look for seeds, and insects living in the stems provide food for woodpeckers and nuthatches.
Sedum 'Autumn Joy': Insurance for the Late Season
These nomes will turn into bronze colored umbrellas, and will break off tiny seeds for birds to eat. They even do this when covered with snow. The thick stems are ice resistant, providing a food source throughout the winter.
Berry Bushes Native To The Area: Winter Fruit Bars
Elderberry, viburnum, and dogwood shrubs offer berries that last through winter and provide crucial fats and carbs. Various species ripen at different times resulting in an ongoing food supply. The shrubs also provide nesting habitats and shelter from predators.
Making Your Wild Bird Feeding System
Success comes from using plants that offer food during varying windows of winter. For example, coneflower plants feed birds in November and December and switchgrass which sustains birds in February and March.
Tall plants such as sunflowers and Joe-Pye weeds attract acrobatic finches, while medium height coneflowers patch will draw in versatile feeders. Low height grasses invite ground-scratching species. By creating feeding zones based on the height of the plants, finches and ground feeders will be able to feed in the same area. This multi layered plant approach will yield a higher bird diversity than a single bird feeder.
Most importantly, try your best to avoid fall clean-ups. Those 'messy' seedheads and stems are literally keeping birds alive through winter. In spring, you will be able to cut back, and leave the new growth to begin the cycle again.
