Maybe this is the wrong forum I'm thinking for this question. I'll let this one cruise on down.

Dax

Dax - I think you gave up too soon. There are a few gardeners that check the Bird Watching Forum. Gardenweb has a Wildlife Garden forum but it's not very active.

I've planted a lot to things to attract birds:
Viburnums - Blue Muffin, Autumn Jazz, Chicago Luster, trilobum, Onondaga, Brandywine and a Wentworth seedling, Shasta, Mohawk and Aurora, prunifolium and lentago.
Gray dogwoods and Flowering dogwoods

Elderberry

Amelanchier candensis, stolonifera, arborea

Wild blueberries and a couple cultivars

American holly, deciduous holly

Shortleaf Pine and a Spruce tree

Tulip tree (interesting to watch birds eat out of the "cups" that the seed pods form

Washington Hawthorn

Lots of other trees and shrubs that I didn't plant specifically to feed the birds but they do nest in them.

There are Black Cherries, elms, hackberries and Mulberries growing wild on the back part of our property that were there when we moved here.

A lot of my berrying shrubs are in a long mixed shrub row that I planted along our south property line. Shrubs are nice because I sometimes see bird nests right at eye level and the birds come down to eye level too, rather than stay high in the trees where they're hard to see. A big patch of coneflowers would be nice for the same reason.

I haven't seen hummingbirds use lavender but butterflies will and it blooms a long time.

Native red honeysuckle (lonicera sempervirens) blooms a long time and attracts hummingbirds. 'Major Wheeler' is a newish cultivar that's supposed to bloom well.

Your state conservation department or DNR may have native shrubs and trees available in bare root bundles. Many states do and they're dirt cheap when you buy them that way.

Sweet, I'll add a few of those I wasn't aware of.

Thanks,

Dax

I think this subject is a good topic for a birding forum. Gardener you have a lot shurbs and trees for the birds! Are they all flowering and fruting or did you just recently put them in? I've also planted quite a variety of woody plants to offer food for the birds and wildlife. I focus on native plants because these are used by our native Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) for their caterpillars, and these are a major food source for birds to feed their babies. This includes:

Common elderberry - Sambucus canadensis
Gray & Pagoda Dogwoods - Cornus racemosa & C. alternifolia
Northern arrowwood - Viburnum dentatum
Winterberry holly - Ilex verticillata
American hazelnut - Corylus americana
Serviceberry - Amelanchier
Bayberry - Morella pennsylvanica

Most of these were planted as seedlings and only a few have fruited heavily yet - mostly the Elderberries. They are common but what a great plant - grow fast, fruit heavily, and the birds LOVE them! I enjoyed watching a great variety of birds coming to the Elderberries for about 2 months this summer (some birds I'd never seen before and couldn't identify). Not to mention the squirrels like them too.

I also have a plethora of wild Crabapples, wild cherry, and mature native trees in the yard. I leave some of the dead snags standing and dead branches for birds to perch, leave a few brush piles sitting here or there, have a couple feeders, 4 or 5 bird baths, and lots of gardens with native perennials and grasses. My yard is often teeming with birds!!

Dax - If you have room, it's best to have a wide variety of shrubs and trees since berries tend to disappear so quickly once they're ripe. Also - having different cultivars of one species will help spread out the time when food is available. I do think it's best to go native when planting for birds but named cultivars of a native shrub may have berries that ripen a little earlier or later than the straight species and they may have been selected because they fruit more heavily than the species. So get both. : )

There's a wealth of information in the Wildlife forum if you look through old posts. Here's what comes up when I do a search for birds and berries.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wildlife Gardening Forum

Cool terene. I should note I don't have Elderberry but rather Serviceberry.

Some are of fruiting size. Many I planted between 2007 and yesterday. I didn't move here until Sept. of 07. Viburnum Blue Muffin; Manchurian Viburnum; and the native plants here: dogwood shrub - wild cherry - blackberry - rosa rugosa - etc- all have fruit.

Also for a root-hardy plant here (all zone 5's) you can plant "Peanut Butter Tree" Clerodendrum trichotomum. That's another beauty that blooms on current wood and sets fruit. It's considered invasive because it suckers, but, anything that can be controlled with my lawnmower - I don't consider to be invasive. That's a good one to know about.

I also have Pecans, Cherry trees, and just an ungodly amount of trees generally-speaking... Sassafras albidum is another. I'm planting on a slope beyond my property line more Sassafras and also a large variety of Oaks. Currently, that area is dominated with Osage Orange.

My neighbor has a grand Corylus american growing on the outside of his woodland, and, next year I'm going to harvest the hazelnuts to grow them on.

I didn't think of bayberry but I've rubbed those leaves in my hands and they smell incredible. I'll add that to my list.

I would think Xanthoceras sorbifolium (Yellowhorn) & Heptacodium miconiodes (Seven Sons Flower) are two others worth considering. Crabapples, of course... I just can't deal with the disease problems. Instead, I planted full-size growing Cherries... one is an all-gold cultivar so I get to eat too!

What do you guys think of Snowberry? yea or nea?

Best Regards,

Dax

We've got snowberries all over here in Idaho and I've never seen any birds eat them. But we have a mountain ash and the red berries are currently being cropped by robins before they migrate--, then later in the fall they will be stripped by cedar waxwings.

Here is a link that might be useful: my bird pics

I have several crabapples that the birds seem to love. They also like the hawthorns and apple trees. In the garden I have a miscanthus,rudbeckia and echinacea that the finches like. The best shrub for the birds (that I have anyway) is the Saskatoon/Amelanchier. The robins especially love it.

I have a big mulberry tree that the catbirds and robins, etc, love in the spring. And hummingbirds like my Weigelas.

Thanks for the link bsondahl, a lot of birds I've never seen. Some beautiful species out west.

I see that Hawthorne is sure being enjoyed by the Cedar Waxwings.

Dax

Reeseville Ridge Nursery sure has a lot of birding trees and shrubs... and they're cheap!

Dax

Here is a link that might be useful: Reeseville Ridge Nursery

I had berries on my goumi 'Sweet Scarlet' for the first time last summer but the birds got them quickly when they started to ripen. I didn't even get to try them. I'm adding that to my list of things I've planted for the birds although I actually planted it for myself. : )

i expermint with fruit seeds and have come up with some great plants from scratch. many apples revert back to crabapple trees because of the root stock. bush cherrys and elderberrys and chokecherrys and service berrys sand plums.and blackberrys all attrack birds and they flower and have fruits at different times. i was amazed the the almost bitter chokecherrys really brought in the birds as they are very tart.