A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Shrubs to Attract The Wildbirds ?

I have been looking in the seed catalog at shrubs. I found a Sea Berry or Sea Buckhorn. It requires a male & female bush. The bush is real hardy. Has anyone had any experience growing these bushes? What I like about it is they will hold their fruit for the birds in the winter (that is if the birds don't eat all the fruits early on). I live in zone 4 & the soil is clay.

I have never grown Sea Buckthorn, but have come across them in nurseries now and then. From what I know, they are easy to grow and generally low maintenance, and tolerate temps down to zone 3 -- but beware the thorns. Also, they tend to sucker densely, and extensively, spreading to form a large clump.

A great tree for attracting birds in your zone would be a mountain ash. They love the berries in the late summer/early fall. They have the tendency of holding their fruit for a long time as well.

Thank you Frann, & The plant Doc, The Buckthorn sounds very evasive so will drop that one. I have found 4 varities of Mountain Ash in the Jung's Catalog. The Russian Mountain Ash, Ivan's Beauty, Ivan's Belle, & Rabina Mountain Ash. What varities would you suggest? Two varities were suggested for more fruit. There is also a bug or disease killing the regular Ash trees in our area. I wonder if the Mountain Ashs would be affected by this?

Try a Mulberry bush or tree. I have four and the birds flock to mine in spring, ESPECIALLY, Robins, Mockingbirds, and Cedar Waxwings.

I have a holly berry shrub in my backyard. The birds seem to like the red berries. I live in zones 3 & 4 as well, and also have clay soil.

Thorny, I have a mulberry tree in my backyard and the birds just love it.

lol, my neighbor has a mulberry tree, too. a lot of the branches are over the back part of my yard...

i ALWAYS forget and walk around barefoot when the berries are busy falling...end up with purple feet!!

the birds DO love the berries tho!!

The mountain ash is not a true ash tree, so the blights which are effecting them will not harm any mountain ashes. If you are trying to attract birds I would go for the one that has the highest potential for berries.

Ms.Tmac, I had the hollyberry shrub marked in a seed catalog but was not sure about it. I called the catalog company and they are sold out. Maybe a nursery around here will have it on hand. I was amazed at all the berries on the stems in the catalog photo. The birds sure would love that.

The mulberry tree sounds like a purple monster. LOL !!! I could see purple stains on everything, everywhere, purple house, purple car, purple sidewalk, purple laundry hanging on the clothesline.

black cherry, choke cherry, etc

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