Attracting birds into your landscape can be easy if you know a little about what they like and their habits. Plants are a key part in many birds’ lives because they provide both materials and structure for shelter, and provide food with not only a multitude of fruits, nuts and seeds but also a source for insect eating birds.

Birds are highly visual and are attracted by brightly colored flowers; this is especially true of hummingbirds, so choose plants with red or orange (tubular) flowers to get them interested. The eating habits of birds vary widely. Small non-migratory birds eat almost constantly during daylight hours where as migratory birds need large amounts of food for a day or two.

Different plants have different resources to offer. Deciduous plants bear the most fruit, nuts and seeds. Evergreen plants and trees provide berries and seed-filled cones and can act as year-round shelters and nesting sites.

Here are some locally available plants that provide resources for birds in Seattle gardens:

Trees

Acer circinatum / Vine Maple – Provide seeds eaten by many birds

Crataegus douglasii / Black Hawthorne – Grows in a thicket, provides great shelter, berries eaten
by birds, robins, woodpeckers and ducks

Sorbus varieties / Mountain Ash – Provides shelter and berries in summer and fall

Shrubs

Cornus stolonifera / Red-Twig Dogwood – Provides nesting site, berries eaten by warblers, robins
and flycatchers

Ribes alpinum / Red Flowering Currant – Berries eaten by jays, sparrows, and woodpeckers,
nectar and color attractive to hummingbirds

Symphoricarpos albus / Snowberry – Berries persist into the winter, eaten regularly by quail and
grouse, emergency food for many others

Sambucus varieties / Red and Blue Elderberry – Red variety ripen in early summer, blue variety
ripen in fall, nectar for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies

Lonicera fragrantissima / Honeysuckle – Prolific flowers provide nectar for hummingbirds

Fuchsia varieties – Spring and summer food source for hummingbirds

Perennials

Aquilegia formosa / Red Columbine – Favorite native for hummingbirds, sparrows and finches
like seeds, very adaptable plant and showy flowers

Dicentra formosa / Western Bleeding Heart – Early spring source of nectar for hummingbirds

Crocosmia varieties / Montbretia – Summer food source for hummingbirds

Outside my kitchen window grows a Mock Orange (Philadelphus virvinalis) the scent from which has been wafting in for weeks. I know that as a designer I always incorporate scents into a garden, trying to provide a surprise for each season and pleasure for the owner. But this shrub I did not plant. It was there when we moved into the house, in a side yard to which I seldom go, and it grows happily in benign neglect, right up to the eaves. But the serendipitous pleasure it brings our family each year has prompted me to think again about other plants that provide beauty appreciated by senses other than sight. So to start, here are some great smelling additions for the seattle garden.

Winter: Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Arnold Promise’, Sarcacocca hookerana humilis, S. ruscifolia

Spring: Choisya ternate, Daphne odora, Wisteria floribunda, Clematis armandii

Summer: Lonicera japonica, Jasminum polyanthum, Philadelphus coronarius

Fall: Cercidiphyllum japonica – the leaves smell of cinnamon and apple, Itea iliciflora

And don’t forget the herbs, especially the old standards: the mints, parsley, rosemary, and the thymes.

Baxter