What to plant when your property is for the birds

By BILL CHAISSON
Of a Feather
In the early 1970s the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) gave away large numbers of shrubs for a nominal price. The stated purpose of the program was to increase the number of plants in people’s yards that provided food for the birds. As such, the first priority in their selection was that they were fruit-bearing. Presumably, the fact that they also had prominent flowers and were hardy were selling points as well. My family purchased a large quantity and planted them strategically around our property. We had just moved into a new home and my parents’ motivation was along the lines of inexpensive landscaping, but they were hardly averse to the presence of birds.

The two species that I remember well were the “high bush cranberry” and the “Russian olive.” I put these names in quotation marks because the former is a viburnum and not actually related to real cranberries, which are ericads, like blueberries and huckleberries. The latter is not an olive, but from a group called the silverberries. Both are prolific producers of fruit, so their conservation purpose was indeed served. Both, however, are also invasive, especially the Russian olives, and tend to displace native species.

This business of unintended consequences as relates to landscape planning and conservation is an old one. When Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park in New York during the 1850s he intended to create a pastoral landscape. (He designed the park with Calvert Vaux, but Vaux was largely focused on the buildings.) A pastoral landscape is a natural one, of a sort. Olmsted intended to replicate an English agricultural landscape, which was a mixture of pasture, cropland, woodlots, and hedgerows. He went on several walking tours through England to become familiar with what we now called “the look and feel” of these places. The famous Sheep Meadow, for example, had actual sheep grazing in it for many decades.

Olmsted populated Central Park with many native species because he knew they would grow well, but he also added many exotics because he also had another agenda, which was to make a design that flowered all through the growing season. To that end he planted Japanese knotweed, which flowers in late August and early September, when few other shrubs-scale plants are in bloom. Knotweed has, of course, become a scourge on the land. Most North American insects ignore it, so there is nothing for native insectivorous birds to eat. It secretes allelopathic chemicals from its roots, which kill other plants near it, so no other fruit-producing plants can grow in its monocultural stands, further ostracizing native bird species.

Olmsted happily did not screw up like this all that often and today Central Park is regarded as an important oasis for migrating birds and also is home to an impressive roster of breeding species.

Since the 1970s conservation organizations — governmental and nonprofits — have gotten wiser about prescribing landscape planting to attract birds and exotic species are generally avoided. Highbush cranberry is a North American species, but was not native to the part of New York where I grew up. (It is found throughout New Hampshire and Vermont as a native species.) Unfortunately, as a viburnum it has fallen prey to the viburnum leaf beetle, which completely defoliates the shrub and kills it. Because the DEC sold hundreds of them at a time there are virtually groves of these shrubs growing right next to each other. This is a banquet for birds, but also a banquet for invasive pests who proceed to decimate the artificially dense viburnum population, and then spread into the native landscape.

There are now many online sources that give you advice about what to plant in order to attract particular bird species. Allaboutbirds.org (a source I cite often because it is maintained by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, where I volunteered for many years) has a page that lists trees, shrubs and vines that they like. For example, they recommend planting serviceberries, which are also called shadbush, shadblow and various other names, to attract robins, cedar waxwings, scarlet tanagers, cardinals, vireos, and grosbeaks. Olmsted was fond of them too, because they have beautiful white blossoms in the spring (in April when the shad start running; hence the name) and striking smooth silver-gray bark. Plus they are an understory tree, producing a level of the woodland environment that is above shrubs but below the canopy trees. A diversity of niches creates a diversity of occupants.

This topic can be approached from either the bird side or the plant side. The Morton Arboretum in Chicago has a webpage that lists “trees and shrubs that attract birds.” Not all of the species they list are appropriate for New England and some of them are exotics. The N.H. Fish & Game localizes the topic well. Just go to their site and search using the phrase “planting for birds” and you will be brought to a page called “Creating backyard wildlife habitat.” This will widen your scope to get you thinking not just about birds and what they eat, but an entire ecological approach that includes planting for the insects that the birds are going to eat, discussions of water features, and selecting plants for cover and for nesting.

The other day I saw a ruby-throated hummingbird circulating through the apple blossoms on the tree that hangs over into our yard. Many people plant multiple species of red flowers simply to attract hummingbirds. Hummingbirds deserve a whole column to themselves.