Welcome to A Garden for Birds, I'm so glad you're here! On this gardening channel, Mother Nature is the main event, and I’m just her nerdy sidekick.
I have always loved gardens and landscape design - but it wasn't until I planted my first native garden that I learned the joy of watching birds and pollinators eat, sleep, and raise their young in my garden...and now I'm hooked!
Join me as I do my best to make my backyard a pollinator and bird habitat by planting to provide food, shelter, and places to raise their sweet little families!
I loved this video! It was very informative, cute, and fun to watch. I am working on creating a permaculture homestead on six acres in North Carolina. I would like to plant a wide variety of native plants, in order to create a self sustaining landscape. I will definitely be subscribing to your channel!
Thanks so much! Yay, that's awesome! You've maybe seen the channel Parkrose Permaculture, I really enjoy Angela's perspectives and learn a lot from her!
Thank you for the great information. I have been working to transform our yard into “healthy.” I just ordered 59 bushes in gallon containers from Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin. 🎉
Holy Cow! 😅 I hope you have some help getting all those in the ground! Prairie Nursery has a nice diversity of shrubs - would be curious to hear what you picked out!
You asked, so here goes: button bushes, serviceberry, pussy willow, elderberry,, pagoda Dogwood, Blackhaw viburnum, Downey arrowwood, red osier Dogwood, and highbush cranberry. I’m thinking about adding some snowberries to the order. What’s your experience with them? I would describe this area as on the dry and partial sun. Yes, I’ve reached out for help. We planted 1800 plants this past spring and I learned my lesson.
Another informative, creative, and inspiring video. Your channel is going to grow and grow and grow....just like your gardens. Really, you create the best videos!
Great news about the gardener being victorious over the H.O.A. in Maryland , and the subsequent change in the laws.. That is one of the big reasons we wouldn't even look at a home with an H.O.A. when we purchased here in Florida last fall. We wanted our freedom to plant tropical fruit trees (unfortunately not native) for us and native flowers/shrubs/trees/grasses for the pollinators and birds. Binging on your content now that I found your channel.
I haven't been brave enough to try planting many fruit trees yet, but taking some pressure off the industrial agriculture systems is an excellent use of land! It's kind of amazing how frustrated so many people are with HOAs, considering they're meant to preserve property values and represent homeowners - seems like "fertile ground" for some experimentation to see how things could be done differently, and maybe HOAs could actually become advocates for nature and the land. I'm very curious to research this topic in more depth!
Now the third of your videos for me to watch. Yes....I'm binge watching it would appear. Jeez....what time will I actually get to bed? You really are talented at content, editing, and just being downright entertaining! So glad to have found your channel!
I just subscribed. That has to be one of the most (no...the most!) creative and engaging video I have seen on this topic. You obviously obsessed on this. I love the whole concept of Homegrown National Park. Doug Tallamy is one of my gurus. The information currently out there is hugely slanted to the eastern half of the continent, where you are located. So it makes total sense that the content leans heavily on that side of the Mississippi. There is a lot of catching up to do when it comes to comparable info for the western half of the continent. Your work is incredible! I now have to watch all your other videos.
Welcome aboard!! Thank you so much for all the kind words! That’s a great point, I hadn’t thought about that! Even if there is a comparable volume of research in the west, Doug Tallamy has been a conduit for translating that information to the general public, but with the eastern skew. More spokespersons in the west might help! Xerces has been one really valuable resource for regionally balanced information!
My woods is losing MANY oaks due to bacterial leaf scortch. It's devastating for the insect populations and the birds that rely on them to feed their young. I have much more light, and was wondering what to plant to help my local wildlife. (I'm close to your home state.) Thanks for the wonderful video. I was going to do large stands of lupine next year, now I will plant the best kind.
@@NanaWilson-px9ij Aw, that’s tough. I wonder if getting more space between the surviving trees (since you’ve lost some) might actually help prevent further spread. You could consider embracing a savanna style woodland. You can get some incredible biodiversity in a savanna!
Genuinely blown away by this presentation, beautiful work and narration. I’ve got a good number of all of these plants and seeds of these plants in my cart to purchase now on Prairie Moon
I just want to add to all of the great comments that it makes you feel so good when you get to see all kind of differents insectd enjoying whst you offer in your garden. Thanks ...
This is so cool! I just looked up lupine on Prairie moon today! They flat out mention this same thing in the information on the sundial lupine page. Trying to decide what companion flower to plant with it??? 🤔
@@75shadystorm Actually, I learned this about lupine from an email Prairie Moon Nursery had sent out! On their page for Sundial lupine they say “You can find lupine in oak savannas, sand prairies, and pine barrens plant communities.” So researching those plant communities might be helpful to find companion plants!
@gardenforbirds well I was wanting to buy another flower that the blue butterflies would enjoy after they hatch. Or, possibly another flower that blooms after lupine is done. What do you think? Last spring I purchased 18 different flower seed packets from them and spotted bee balm was not one of them. Would that be a good choice?
This website describes some additional plants they’ve been observed to like. They do list bee balm! “ Karner blue butterflies prefer a balance of open and closed canopy habitats. Adults feed on nectar from a wide variety of flowers, while the larva has only one known food source, wild lupine. Wild lupine thrives best in sandy soils in oak savannas and barren sandy areas. Karner blue butterflies use a variety of native flowering plants that provide nectar, including beebalm, cinquefoil, blackberry, leadplant, milkweeds, gayfeather, and black-eyed Susans.” landpotential.org/habitat-hub/karner-blue-butterfly/
Was that the dreaded mortality realization inducing century plant? Where you realize you won't live to see it flower, and then you see some other ones flower and it's so underwhelming and exaggeratingly tall at the same time.
They call me the clearance rack king 'round these parts. Word has it most people pay full price but I can't do it. Give me roots and you have given me many plants.
I started with lightning bugs! Think one of your videos actually and I realized I was already doing quite a bit right. Now I'm in a massive research hyperfocus phase and prep stage.
Your videos f****** rock! I'm super into native stuff right now but there's only so many boring old ladies I can listen to... your content is a breath of fresh air and quite humorous. 🤘😎
(If anything is inaccurate or wrong in my post please don’t be mean about it.) With Monarchs its best to avoid planting Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) Even though it can meet the requirements as a host plant, it does raise the risk of spreading OE (a parasite). If you do have Tropical Milkweed, be sure to cut back your plant by Thanksgiving. This will reduce the amount of spores being spread AND help encourage monarch migration. There’s a way to “sanitize” the plant with a bleach mixture but I personally haven’t done that. The other downside of tropical milkweed is that it tends to grow and flower year round. This can indirectly harm monarch butterflies as they may lay their eggs on the plant during the cold season instead of continuing their migration to warmer climates.
The wasps in my garden don’t allow me to have caterpillars on my plants but I’m still lucky to see so many different bee and butterfly species on my flowers
It’s wild, only something like 2% of Caterpillar eggs laid will made it to the adult stage! I’m not sure if something like the mesh bags used for blueberry bushes might help for protecting monarchs, for example.
this is great if you live in the northeast but very little relevant information to those living in the western half of the country. maybe warn viewers about this
I actually also noticed the bias to the east as I was reviewing the final edit - it’s made me realize that the results for some of my web searches are likely biased based on my location and my personal search history, which definitely leans to the east for my own gardening queries! (It’s good to be aware for the future so I can include more targeted searches!) Hopefully some of the websites linked in the pinned comment might be helpful - About half of them are generic to region, and I find them very useful tools for garden research!
Yea! I so look forward to your videos!!! I love , love , love them! I learn soo much from them and they are fun and humorous. Thank you for the wonderful videos! :)
@gardenforbirds since your last video post have watched your entire library. You are one of my favorite creators on RU-vid. I am wondering your thoughts on Homegrown National Park
Thank you, that’s very kind! I really like what Homegrown National Park is doing, and Doug Tallamy was a huge inspiration for my own personal shift to habitat gardening. I love the approach of connecting people through the HNP, I think it’s inspiring to see other people are out there doing their best toward a common cause!
I literally just planted the wrong variety of lupine seeds last week. This video helped me realize that so now I’m going to replace it with the eastern variety.
Oh no! Unfortunately it’s very easily done…I wish companies marketing wild seed were more transparent about what was in those little packets. There are a few really high quality and reputable companies that specialize in native seeds and plants. As I’ve learned about their processes, it’s clearly hard work that requires a lot of dedication - I’ve come to really appreciate what they do!
