Bird attracting plants

In the past, when I’ve worked in retail nurseries, on an almost daily basis we would get a customer request for plants that were good for attracting birds. Unfortunately most people’s exposure to native plants that are good for bringing in our feathered friends is from mainstream Australian native gardening books or TV shows which push the same small list of cultivar grevilleas, bottlebrushes and banksias. These plants are recommended whether you live in Hobart or Darwin, Sydney or Perth – which may be great in making a book marketable nation-wide, but takes little account of the diversity of our big country and its innumerable unique ecosystems – and let’s face it, can get a little boring after a while!Up here on the Range, from Bellthorpe to Maleny and then north to Mapleton, we are in what was mainly rainforest and tall eucalypt country. Many of the birds of the Blackall Range are fruit eaters. Fleshy fruit being a major means of dispersal by many of our rainforest plants. We can help these often uncommon birds to be able to move through the landscape again by using local native plants in our gardens to recreate habitat and food sources.Fortunately for the gardener and plant lover in general, many of these local fruit bearing plants also look great in the garden, so not only do the local wildlife get a good feed and are able to move through the landscape – but you get to choose from a great diversity of beautiful local native plants. For example Silky Myrtle (Decaspermum humille), Rose Myrtle (Archirhodomyrtus beckleri), Native Guava (Rhodomyrtus psidioides) Ironwood (Gossia acmenoides) Blue Lillypilly (Syzygium oleosum) are all fantastic shrubby hedge plants with beautiful foliage and flowers and fruit for the birds. They are all naturally bushy and need very little in the way of pruning to shape.Quick growing, guaranteed bird attracters include the Koda (Ehretia acuminata), Native Elderberry (Sambucus australasica), Celerywood (Polyscias elegans) and Native Mulberry (Pipturus argenteus).The few plants listed above are but a small sample of the hundreds of local beauties that could be listed if we had space and time…Some of the birds you can expect to see in your garden with the addition of local natives include Catbirds, Bower Birds, Lewin’s Honeyeaters, Brown Cuckoo Doves, Emerald Doves, Wonga Pidgeons, Silvereyes and if you plant a few figs maybe even the rare Coxens Fig parrot! Unfortunately the Coxens Fig Parrot appears to be on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss. So get busy planting local natives in your gardens and creating habitat corridors on your properties so we don’t lose any more local birds.Ph 0428 130 769 spencer.shaw@brushturkey.com.au www.brushturkey.com.au