"mmarteen" wrote in message
...
I am thinking about planting a bird garden this spring in a now kind of
ugly
area of my yard at the back of the house near the alley. Stuff I am
considering planting the

Two kinds of amaranth
Two kinds of millet
Sunflowers (various kinds)
Celosia (both the plumed kind and the cockscomb for looks)
I was also thinking about putting a bird bath among the sunflowers so that
they would have food and water.

I'd love to hear any other ideas on design, varieties of plants or
experiences people have had.

mm

One thing you didn't mention was shrubs or trees for nesting sites. Birds
seem to prefer dense foliage in shrubs for nests.The favorites in my yard
are an overgrown, untrimmed forsythia (cardinal favorite), an althea that
has dense foliage, a bridal wreath that is about five feet tall and as wide,
and a couple of Japanese maples along with a holly that a brown thrasher
nests in yearly. Bird nests are impossible to spot in any of these
shrubs/trees unless you pull aside the foliage. We usually only realize
there are nests in these when we hear a male singing or notice activity in
and out of the plant as the parents gather food.

Birds also pick unusual spots. One was a pot of ivy on our front porch which
a Carolina wren decided was the perfect nesting site. Yes, I watered the ivy
from the bottom while the wren claimed it.

John