Goldfinches only visit my feeders in the winter. In the growing season, they like to feed on the seed heads of Verbena bonarensis, Rudbeckia maxima, Echinacea, Rudbeckia fulgida, etc...

We don't usually see goldfinches in Baton Rouge until December or January and they only stay for a couple months.

I have the Verbena Bonarensis, Rudbeckia and Echinacea planted but have never seen a goldfinch.

Maybe I will see them this year since my plants are much bigger now and are producing lots of blooms.

So I put the feeder out too soon. I should wait until winter to hang the feeder out.

Thanks for the quick answers......

Never had goldfinches in my yard until I started growing Verbena Bonariensis and now there are tons of them - visiting my tall zinnias and some agastaches - even though I already pulled some verbenas (mildew)...

I guess once they've visited, they stay and see what else is in the garden.

Carrie

I had never had goldfinches until I hung a sock full of thistle seed. It stayed covered with goldfinches. When the squirrels kept knocking the socks down, I stopped hanging them and just went with regular birdfeeders filled with some great seed offered by Kroger. (They have just changed the formula and I probably won't be buying it any more. It had a lot of cracked corn and sunflowers in it. Not any more.) I still have oodles of goldfinches. They seem to stay all year. I am just south of Atlanta. Don't know why they like it here but I'm glad they do.

Judy,
That's not fair. We are not that far from each other and I have never seen one in my garden.

Did you hang the sock in the open or under a tree? I put mine under the canapy of a tree because I read that they like cover for safety. Maybe they can't see it under the limb of the tree.

faye

I can't get goldfinches to come to the feeders in the garden but they will come to a feeder if I hang it near our laurel hedge, go figure.

Annette

Plant zinnias, agastache, and black oil sunflowers, the kind you find in a bird seed mix. They will come. I've got to figure out a way to collect zinnia seeds from torn apart flowers. They're getting them before they're even ripe. Same with the sunflowers.

Faye, I hang the feeder in a crape myrtle.

Water. Y'all don't forget about providing sources of clean, fresh water for birds.

It doesn't have to be fancy, This is a rock with a depression and a piece of bamboo from the dollar store cut at an angle and slid over a piece of cut-off hose. supported by a piece of twisted rebar. I used to let it drip, now I just turn on the water when I'm out there.

It can be as simple as a metal garbage can lid upside down filled with water, with fresh water in a milk jug with a pinhole in the bottom sitting on the edge of a concrete block to drip into it. The sound of dripping water will attract birds.

Nell

We live just a little north of Atlanta and have lots and lots of gold finches, seemingly all year. Ours just adore thistle seed and we always keep a fresh supply of water for them. They also like the safflower seed. We are phasing out the use of sunflower seed because we have a terrible squirrel problem, and that is their favorite.
Vicki

I feed black-oil sunflower seed - less expensive than thistle (nyjer), lasts longer, the Goldfinches love it and so do lots of other birds.

The Goldfinches also love to eat the seeds and sometimes the petals of lots of flowers - Zinnias, Echinacea, Agastache, Joe Pye weed, Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum), Rudbeckia, Verbena bonariensis, Scabiosa ochroleuca are some of the ones they like in my gardens. They also go NUTS over annual Sunflowers.

In the fall, I usually harvest some of the Echinacea seedheads, store them in the garage, and then tape them to the bird feeder pole and they enjoy the seeds through the winter.

Faye,
I am selfish. I hung the socks (and the birdfeeders) on metal hangers on my upper deck rail just outside my bedroom window. That way I can watch them. The feeders are in the wide open spaces, about 10-15 feet above the ground. The birds sit on the rail and "wait their turn." LOL I have house finches too, and lots of others. The wrens are the happiest. Just sit and sing and sing.

I'm hoping Sue (plantlady999) will post a picture of their feeders covered in Goldfinches, they even have a picture on an albino Goldfinch which created quite a stir among the birders here. As I said before, I can't coax them into my yard other than along the hedgerow and Sue had them right next to their back door.
She said she would see if she could find one or two of the pictures they took, I think they counted, no I'm not going to say how many, I let her tell...when/if she posts the pictures :o).

Annette

Ooo! I know what did it for me and I wasn't even trying!
Green Wizard coneflowers. At least, I think they were some sort of coneflower. I just know they were from Bluestone and are tall and have only the tall black center and green "petals" although they look more like leaves. They're kind of neat and it's the only thing in the whole garden the goldfinches go for.

We are fortunate to have them all year round also - love watching them go through their color changes depending on the season. We use sock feeders and the long tubes but what I love best is when they hit the zinnias, blackeyed susans, verbena bonariansis and agastaches. To me that is what gardening is all about .......

Lynne

I have goldfinches in my garden too, but quite honestly I'm not sure what attracted them in the first place. Of course, being in Europe means I get the European goldfinches, which are different from the American one, but I suppose their needs are not that different. The attraction can't be the coneflowers, since mine are minute and wimpy, nor the verbena bonariensis, because I can't find either the plants or the seeds here.

I do have a firethorn hedge in the front garden and this is a magnet for all sorts of birds, not only the goldfinches. Maybe they visited one Winter and decided it was a good place to stay for good. I do keep a birthbath with water and this makes a lot of difference in a place with hot Summers, no rain for months and no nearby lakes or rivers.

Whatever it is, they seemed to have liked the garden and last year they nested on the climbing rose above our front porch! It was an amazing sight, since we use the door all the time and they didn't care about it at all. When we subsequently did some work to the house in the Fall I had to cut the rose to ground level, so had to remove the empty nest. I was sorry to have to do that, but then I realized they were around the garden nevertheless and a few weeks ago I noticed they have nested in the sweet gum tree, which is only a couple of feet away from the previous nesting place and right next to the birdbath and the firethorn hedge. Clever guys :-)

They are an absolutely beautiful bird and I love their song. I agree with Lynne, when I have birds nesting in the garden, then I feel this is what gardening is all about.

Eduarda

Here is a link that might be useful: European Goldfinch

By planting verbena bonariensis, rudbeckia and echinacea.

I've circled the goldfinches in this photo! They come in pairs. All Goldfinches are vegetarians - they don't eat insects, only seeds.

Cameron

Don't forget Joe Pye Weed and cornflowers. Finches love these too.

Anyhow, Goldfinches go crazy with flax seeds and so I have these in my feeder which do attract the birds. Also add a small pool of water nearby to complete the bird oasis.

Ianna

I hang my nyjer feeder under the deck. It took the goldfinches a while to find it, but now they are around. They also come to my echinacea which I noticed years ago-that is what prompted me to get the feeder. Also, remember that they are not always that spectacular color. In winter, you will see only a tinge of yellow on the body feathers. I didn't think they overwintered here in N. VA until the fellow at our bird seed store set me straight! I just didn't recognize them. I also put out seed year-round-less in late summer and fall, but I still put out a little and the berries and seed aren't available in spring/early summer, so I feed then as well.

Interesting. Of the plants listed, I have agastache, annual sunflowers, zinnias, and echinacea. I've noticed quite a few goldfinches this summer, more than last year when the echinacea was new and didn't bloom much, I only had a few sunflowers, and no zinnias.

I've also noticed some plain black birds that are way too small to be crows - but no red marks, so not red-winged blackbirds. I'm now wondering what they are. They spend more time pecking in the grass than visiting the flowers.

here in the mountains of nor. cal., we get gold finches on the echinacea, rudbeckia and a lot at the water fountain. we don't have feeders though . . .

I have 3 that come to my yard daily, they only seem interested in the sock and around the bird bath on warmer days (which we haven't had many of). These are just a couple of pictures I managed to get. Not the greatest pics, but at least I can enjoy the pics in the winter when the finches are gone to warmer climates.

A close up that isn't very clear.

I though these were Orioles,but i think now they may be golfinches,which is correct?? We have a pair of these hanging around and they constantly drink from the hummers food.
Kathi

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Kathi, Yours are orioles-looks like a hooded oriole. Note the difference in beak between the goldfinch and the oriole! Beautiful picture!

Kathi, definitely an oriole. They're almost twice as big as goldfinches.

Thanks gals.I've lived in this house for 42 years and last year is the first year they started coming around,and then returned again this year.They sure keep me busy filling the feeders and i also have a lot of flowers.We also saw a bluejay last year for the first time,but havn't seen him yet this year.
Kathi

When I switched my seeds from a mix one to all flax seeds, my feeder has been regularly visited by several goldfinches. I also noted that they love bachelors buttons.

Ianna

In my garden they also eat goldsturm black-eyed susans, plains coreopsis (mahogany red and yellow) which seems to be the absolute favorite, and salvia - farinacea and lady in red. It is really fun to watch them on the black-eyed susans if you are close enough to tell the birds from the flowers. They perch high on the stem and rip the petals out of the flower head to get at the seed. I know I have had a lot of finches I missed seeing when I have a patch of bare black eyes with no yellow petals. We had squirrels and then mice under the feeder so the seed-producing flowers works better here.

I feed both thistle and safflower seed (separately) The safflower seed is a bit expensive but it is not wasted like the mixed seed and I get all finches!!