A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Birds and Butterflies

The Joy of Feeding Birds. Creating a Bird Friendly Garden

Garden Plants Which Attract and Feed Birds

Flowers and Plants which Attract Hummingbirds to your Garden

Creating a Butterfly Friendly Garden

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Thank you, Bill! This is excellent! I'm planning on doing my backyard this year, and DH and myself are wanting an area for the birds and squirrels. This just gave me lots to look at! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Wow! That just answered all my questions Bill, thanks!

My husband and I are going to try our hand at a butterfly garden this summer in honor of his late grandmother. She loved butterflies. I wondered if there was anything we could do to make our little patch more appealing to our guests.
Now that I know about puddling I'm going to have to get some sand and container of some sort to keep it in! I'm thinking a birdbath filled with damp sand would work. I am also very happy to hear that herbs are very attractive to butterflies as well since I am planting my fist herb garden this season too!

Well thanks again, I find that all my questions are answered here before I even get a chance to ask them!! That's awesome!

Another good butterfly shrub not on Bill's list is Aesculus parviflora or Bottlebrush Buckeye. I've counted as many as 4 dozen butterflies on mine at one time.

Hi Bill!!! Love your photos....triing to find out how I can upload mine onto here soon. I have used natural wildflowers for my butterfly garden by transplanting the ones that they frequently feed around. Over here in PA we have a couple of Clearwing families.Being the avid bug collector that I am, I snapped a few clear pics of them. They realy love the blue sage that grows all over the place. Butterfly bushes work great also.

Greetings, all! I'm pleased to be attracting butterflies with my flowers. Does that necessarily mean that I'll atrract birds, too? My cats like the idea, but it seems unfair to lure the poor birdies to their doom!

Depends on what you want to attract. I plant large beds of sunflowers and get American Goldfinches. Salvia is good for attracting Humminbirds, as are many flowers. There should be threads on here about the flowers that birds like. I am more of a birdwatcher than a gardner but these are the plants that I use.

How can i post a picture of a plant for identification??? Ive searched the internet and cannot find out what this is. It was very popular with butterflies and hummingbirds. The foliage looks sort of like carnation type leaves and buds..yet the flowers almost look like morning glories or periwinkle..flowers are purple. I have pictures but didnt know how to post them. I can email if needed. HELP!!!

You need to see what other's have written here about posting pics, Weezie knows ........I used to be able to post my pics from Webshots but they no longer let you do that , so I keep them there and people have to go there to see them.

Is it some kind of vinca? or does the flower only open up during sunny days and close each night,"blue-eyed grass" I've got tons of that, which is beautiful, or maybe some dianthus, which is in the carnation family which the butterflies go crazy for and I also get the hummingbird moth , a really cool little creature.

Shan...do you have a photo storage place like Webshots or PhotoBucket? You can post a picture directly here so it shows up using PhotoBucket, but have to post a link to it using webshots. I use PhotoBucket for my pictures...it's very easy to use.

If you'd like me to post it for you you can email it to me and I'll put it on here in the mystery plants forum...and someone will ID it pronto!

afgreyparrot@thegardenhelper.com

Welcome to the forum!

Cindy

I have a question about feeding birds. I did read this segment: The Joy of Feeding Birds. Creating a Bird Friendly Garden, but still am wondering something.

I have heard people say that once you start having bird feeders you need to keep them filled year round cause the birds will come to depend on this food source.

I've also heard that once the ground has thawed and the natural vegetation starts to grow that you should discontinue with feeders until the natural vegetation "hibernates" for the winter, cause if you feed them year round they will forget how to forage the natural vegetation.

Which is true?

That is NOT true. I keep my feeders filled pretty much all the time but have almost no activity in Summer. The busiest periods for feeders is mid-Winter through late spring. Birds come to feeders when food is hard to find. When natural food is plentiful their visits to feeders drop dramatically.

thanks for the information Bill.
penny

Thanks Bill! There's some wonderful information I can use! I'm putting in some new plants this year and I would like to get some flowers that would attract more hummers and butterflies.

When is the best time to transplant butterfly bushes. I have 2 i want to move-they are in front of windows and are too big to leave there.

I feed birds all year long. I purchase my seed from Wildbirds Unlimited because it is blended especially for birds that habitat my area. It costs a little more than seed from the local farm store, but there is no waste.

Very good stuff bill. This is just what I need to learn about. I'm printing all of them now! Thank you very much!!

I need to know if there is any vine I can grow up a tree to attract hummers - I have a great area in the sun but the only thing to climb on is a tree and I've heard not to grow vines on trees, is this true? Thanks in advance

The hummers LOVE my Jasmin and Honey Suckle vines!

Could you get one of those inexpensive arches for the vine to grow on?

This is what I have my honey suckle and jasmine growing on. The hummers LOVE it!

I dont know if its on the list but for bird feeders only use black sun flower seeds or a mixture of grain. Dont use Nuts unless you want squirrels to devour your bird feeder.

Also ivy is good for butterflys because cattapillas like to (what ever its called) on the under side of the follage as it provides excellent protection from predators.

Although ensure you keep it undercontrol as it will take over your garden.

Always transplant in spring or fall. Unless you are in a really cold climate, the window has passed already. You can, however, hack them back a bit, them move them in the fall.

Other hummer vines are anything they can get their little beaks into...Cardinal Climber, Morningglories, Trumpet Vine, Cross Vine, Clock vine, etc. etc. All take full sun and bloom all summer, whereas jasmine only blooms in the spring (although it smells heavenly). Although they tell you hummingbirds especially like red flowers, mine always go for the blue Indigo Spires salvia. Maybe my hummers are colorblind.

Hummers are especially attracted to red but will eat out of every color nectar flower. Bees and wasps see red as black and are attracted to them least, or last, so the hummers know they're the safest color to go to first. Yes bees can hurt hummers.
Be sure to check that the plants and vines arent invasive or you could go nuts trying to pull things out later on.

Trumpet Vine is very good for hummers. The VERY BEST plant I've found for Hummingbirds, especially in late Summer/early Fall, IF you live near a marshy area or small stream is Jewelweed. It forms a bush with small, yellow or orange, trumpet shape blossoms. Its seed pods look like little String Bean pods. These plants grow right in the marshy areas of bogs or on tiny islands in the middle of small streams. These islands are typically a gravel/silt composition and often are packed with Jewelweed bushes. The bushes, in turn, are packed with Hummingbirds in August and September. Here are pictures.

JEWELWEED BUSH IN FULL BLOOM (Impatiens capensis)



JEWELWEED seed PODS

Most butterfly bushes are meant to be cut back to about three inches in late winter or early spring. I would cut them back and leave them where they are.