Best secrets of attracting birds to your garden

Simple strategies to creating a birding garden that supports native wildlife and creates a peaceful oasis in a busy world.

Have you glimpsed the fancy flash of a hummingbird and then stopped to watch? Spotting a bird in their natural environment gives a sense of wonder.

Some people love this feeling so much they travel far and wide to make the spot, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Creating a birding garden is a wonderful way to attract a host of feathered species right to your backyard. This book, will give you some handy tips on how to use natural plants and simple devices to create a garden that attracts birds.

A hummingbird feeding from purple foxglove flowers

Benefits of a birding garden

The sweet sound of birdsong is a soothing way to find peace in a busy world, and birding is a simple way to bring much-needed stress relief into hectic lives. And what’s more, it’s good for the ecosystem and the environment. A bird-friendly garden helps support wildlife and in turn, since these birds control bugs and pests, pollinate fruits and flowers.

A European robin with a beak full of grubs

There’s more good news because a bird-friendly garden doesn’t need chemicals or pesticides to grow healthy plants. With careful planting you can encourage feathered visitors that dine on ants, aphids, beetles, and caterpillars; with one stroke supporting bird numbers and doing away with chemical products, which is good for the environment our health in so many ways.

Red-faced male goldfinch on sunflowers

Planting a bird-friendly garden

To create a successful birding garden means giving the birds what they want. For example, a finch-friendly destination offers seed-bearing plants such as asters, coneflowers, and sunflowers. But, in all but the smallest yards, think in broad strokes with a wide range of planting to attract a variety of birds from migrating sandpipers to grub-loving woodpeckers.

From this book, you can choose plants that are perfectly adapted to the climate and soil type, and exist in harmony with the indigenous insects. Remember, these bugs are also a source of food for birds, which means getting double the value from the plants. Plus, these insects and birds pollinate the flowers, for a rich display of blossoms, blooms, and fruits.

A male eastern bluebird perched with an insect in its mouth

Create a multi-layered display using plants of different heights and a spread of seeding times – but don’t be over-hasty with the dead-heading (birds love the seeds). Consider making space for ornamental grasses, fruiting shrubs, vines, and indeed trees to offer birds a source of food, shelter, and nesting materials. Fortunately, there are a wealth of suitable plant species to choose from to create a birding garden to keep everyone happy.

Sparrows sitting on a wooden garden fence

The perfect garden for birds

Important as food is, there’s more to life than just eating. The best birding gardens are attractive to feathered visitors because they can rest, bathe, and feel safe from predators there, and maybe even stop to raise their young. The most basic factor is that the birds feel safe when surveying the area.

Redstart on the birdhouse

The choice of planting helps with this, by providing vines for small species to flit in and out of, and trees on which to perch away from the local cat. The spacing of plantings is also important, both for the plants to flourish and the birds to see what’s going on around them.

This book will offer you not just a plant list but also some simple, super useful advice to make your garden attractive to these feathered visitors in a snap. Pick some of your favorite plants from this list, follow these suggestions, and it’s not difficult at all to attract them.

Let’s plant a bird garden

The choice of planting encourages birds to visit, but at those times of the year when natural food is scarce then bird feeders are invaluable. Offering the right seeds helps birds survive and encourages them to stay. Most species do best with types of feeders that allow them to perch in a natural position. To draw a diverse range of birds to the garden provide a range of hopper, tray, and tube feeders.

And when those birds have discovered your birding garden, encourage them to stay and raise the next generation by putting up nesting boxes.

House sparrow perched on a garden bird feeder

Lastly, an often overlooked but vital resource is water. A simple, shallow birdbath provides life-saving drinking water at the height of summer or depths of winter and allows birds to bathe and keep plumage in tip-top condition.

Create a birding garden as a one-stop spot that meets all a bird’s needs, and in return, you’ll have a lively display of visitors all year round.

A hermit thrush gorges on Toyon berries

A little know-how

And the great thing is garden birding doesn’t have to be expensive. Why not improvise a birdbath or make your own birdhouse?

Benefit the local ecosystem by planting native species, which encourages native wildlife, and let the birds control pests without the need for insecticides. Simply decide which birds you’d most like to see and then plant to attract them.

And to make the garden irresistible, just use birdfeeders to supplement their diet, a birdbath for water, and birdhouses to raise chicks on site. With just a little know-how, the pay-off is a vibrant garden for the birds and a place of peace and mindfulness for you.