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Tropical Plants - Australia

Tropical plants to attract the birds

18 years ago

We've got a tropical garden which includes cordylines, ferns, bromeliads, gingers and soon to be some haleconias. We've also just added a golden penda in the back corner and have a poinciana and large frangipani which create a canopy over the yard. We've got a well established large pond and also a bird bath in the yard but we'd really like to plant some shrubs (that's about all we have space for) to attract some honeyeaters and lorikeets (we seem to have plenty of magpies). We'd like to keep the tropical theme and wonder if anyone has any suggestions for tropical plants the birds will love? Or any plants that may look okay with our tropical theme. The area we have is part sun, part shade. Thanks in advance!

Comments (6)

gardenlen
18 years ago
g'day laurenkeet,

think along the lines of flowering, fruiting, seeding trees, so melaleucas, callistemons, abutilons, the hybrid grevilleas even pigeon pea, leucania & tagasaste will do it. i have lots of edible mustard and sow/milk thistle growing in and around my gardens the rosellas are always there eating those seeds. don't forget the honey eaters not only eat necter and seeds but they need protein as well and they get that from eating the larva and eggs of all sorts of bugs, so don't go heavy on bug control. we have an old black acacia right near the house and the amount of birds that come and feed from it is astounding and lots of them are the honey eaters.

len

mail len

lens garden page
mistymorn
18 years ago
Hi Laurenkeet and many Welcome's to these Forums, you will get plenty of info and help here.

Len is spot on.

And if you are having any trouble making up your mind have a look at the link below heaps of info on it to create a native garden in your own area...Cheers..MM.

Here is a link that might be useful: Flora for Fauna.
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I started putting seed out for the birds in the winter only. But they hung around expectantly in the spring, so I've continued feeding year-round, adding a couple bird baths. The entire area behind our tall, wooden fence has grown tall and wild - it's an unmaintained strip of "public utilities" land, and has become a natural habitat for birds (and other critters). So we have our backyard and gardens and the birds come and go from behind the fenced area. I bought an Audubon bird field book and enjoy looking up new visitors. There's always a new bird to id. Over the years I've added many suet feeders that attract all kinds of woodpeckers, nuthatches, and sapsuckers. All of the other "regulars" enjoy the suet occasionally, too, and all of them eat from the suet feeders year-round, not just in the winter. The biggest attraction, though, comes by way of everyone's favorite food that I now put out regularly on the deck rail - at least all the insect eaters: I buy inexpensive jars of dry-roasted, UNSALTED, peanuts. I run them through my food processor until they are crumbly. I have yet to see a bird that doesn't come and gobble them up, including the woodpeckers and especially the cardinals. We have hundreds of cardinals. The best part is in the spring, when the mother birds cram as much crumbled up peanuts as they can into their beaks and fly off to feed their babies, then come right back for more. This goes on all day and it makes me feel good that so many babies are being well fed. We've had several bluebird and mockingbird families come to our deck, as the young'uns grow and learn to fly. Later in summer, the visits pare way down, so I know they're on their own now as far as feeding themselves with insects or whatever they'd eat naturally. They don't come around much at all during the summer. It's really fun and interesting - I didn't start this expecting to be a "birder", but I guess that's what's happened. During the early winter, we have many birds stop by that aren't usually seen in NC, on their winter migrations to someplace warmer. Sorry for the long post!
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Will: Great place to ask this question. I have learned a lot here. Most seem to agree that wood edges are the best areas for wildlife. Wood edges contain lots of berrying shrubs. I'd recommend using native plantings wherever possible. If you plan to feed birds then this is important to the environment. The birds eat the berries, defecating the seeds. This helps to spread the plants. For most non-natives, this makes them very invasive. I recently began restoring habitat around my home and I have planted various native viburnums, elderberries, shrub dogwoods, serviceberries and native hollies. The birds seem to love them all. I'm sure some others will chime in, but you might want to read a book like Noah's Garden to get some good ideas. Sand County Almanac is another good book about restoring habitat. I have also included a link for you. Here is a link that might be useful: Creating Habitat
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goldhills
18 years ago
Many of the lillypilly varieties eg Syzigium, Eugenia are shrub size and have flowers and edible fruit that birds love. There are some rainforest grevilleas but I think they are big growers, also Buckinghamia (Ivory Curl) but may be a bit big.
laurenkeet
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks all for your feedback. We visited the nursury yesterday and chose an ivory curl (looks like it will be okay space wise) and a Honey Gem grevilla as they seem to look best in the space we have available. We've got some cordylines and gingers to go in front of them and I think the colour contrast will look fantastic and help maintain our tropical look.

We also visited the botanic gardens to see their mature versions and fell in love with the Parrot Tree "Schotia Brachypetala" which was swarmed with honeyeaters and lorikeets. There were none in the nurseries as it's not very common so we found one we were able to take a cutting from and hopefully propagate ourselves, just don't know what we'll do with it when it gets really big!

We don't use any pesticides so we have abundant little insects in our yard, so now we just have to wait for the birds! Thanks again for your valuable input.

Lauren
wollemia_TC
18 years ago
Lauren
Don't know how much space you have, but Buckinghamia celcissima can grow pretty big, even though it is fairly slow-growing. You may want to reconsider if you have an average sized garden. A shrubby Banksia like B. spinulosa might be a better option.
Tony
laurenkeet
Original Author
18 years ago
Tony, thanks for your thoughts. Our Poinciana is pretty much at the end of it's life so we're hoping we might be able to eventually move the Ivory Curl into the spot. I know it seems hard to imagine but it seems to work with our yard. Also our parrot tree will get way to big for our yard but when things start getting too large for our yard we plan on moving them to my mums acerage, so we can both enjoy them for a while. Thanks again and we'll keep an eye on the size of the Ivory Curl.

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