Winged Wednesday: Plants for Birds - Alternative Native Plants

I picked up a book titled Garden Secretes for Attracting Birds, and generally speaking it has lots of good ideas. So if you are in the market for birdscaping ideas, I recommend picking up a copy. The book does not however distinguish between native and invasive plants. Here are few take-aways which I wanted to share.

Beware of Honeysuckle! Lanicera sempervirens is a native plant from North America, but it is not native to Wisconsin or Minnesota. There are a host of invasive honeysuckles which have damaged wild places in Wisconsin. Some of these species include: Tartarian Honeysuckle, Amur Honeysuckle, and Japanese Honeysuckle. Invasive bush honeysuckles can take over the understory of wood lots, forests, and even our preserves and state parks. Invasive Honeysuckles spread quickly from our yards to wild spaces because birds eat the berries and deposit the seeds elsewhere. There are some native species of Honeysuckle you may want to consider instead: Northern Bush Honeysuckle, American Fly Honeysuckle, and Limber Honeysuckle. When these native plants have their seed spread by birds, they don't damage our wild spaces because they evolved as part of the biome.

Norway Spruce is suggested as a good evergreen tree for attracting birds like Red Breasted Nuthatches and Cross Bills. Instead of planting Spruces from across the pond, consider planting some that already grow in the state; White Spruce and Black Spruce are both native to Wisconsin. White Spruces are popular plants in people's yards and make good windbreaks. Black Spruce is not as common in yards but is used by Black Capped Chickadees, Warblers, Owls, and Jays for nesting and roosting; in other words, there is not an advantage to planting their Norwegian cousin.

Common Foxglove is a flowering plant suggested for attracting Hummingbirds and American Goldfinches. There are a number of tall flowering plants native to the American Prairie. Plants like Lavender Hyssop, Blazing Star, Wild Bergamot, Blue Lupine and Joe Pye Weed all make excellent replacements for Foxglove. There are a host of other tall flowering plants, so when you are looking for plants for Hummingbirds, it's very hard to imagine why you would need or want to plant Foxglove. If you are looking for flowers which will have seeds to attract American Goldfinches, I would recommend Pale Purple Coneflower, Purple Coneflower, or Black-Eyed Susans as being excellent seed producers and very effective for attracting finches.

These are just some suggestions about plants from the book that can be easily replaced with native plants. The book itself is pretty good and had some helpful ideas, but be aware that if invasive plants attract birds, the birds themselves will spread the seed and therefore distribute the invasive plants across their territory. No invasive plants are truly confined to your yard or garden; they will make their way out and about. So take a look at the book and use your best judgement.