Thanks to the Birds

May 2, 2009 at 5:43 am (Flowers)
Tags: Birds, Flowers, Gardening

“Thanks to the Birds”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana 

 

For many years now we have been feeding the birds that come to our garden.  We are lucky to have a great variety of year-round avian residents, and many “tourist” birds visit, usually in the late fall to early spring.  While we appreciate our cardinals, woodpeckers, titmice, and chickadees, to name a few, it is the indigo buntings, goldfinches, and grosbeaks that really give us a thrill.  I guess it is so easy to be seduced by the “new kid in town” syndrome.  Having all these birds stopping by the many feeders means that we are constantly buying black oil sunflowers, peanuts, etc., but the birds have returned the favor in a way.  Besides having their bright colors, fliting movements and sweet songs in the garden, a few plants have been carried in by them.

This is how coral berry (ardisia crenata) showed up in the garden as well as a few other plants.  But the one that I want to share today is the bright little yellow sunflower.

 

 

These come up in the garden especially near the hanging bird feeders.  They can be anywhere from eighteen inches to four feet tall, and the flowers can be three to eight inches across.  Since I do not plant them or know if the ones for bird feeding are all the same variety, I do not know the reason for the differences in size.  It may be related to how much soil covers the seed or if the seed is just laying on top of the ground when it sprouts.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter since the the small ones are just a pretty in their own right as the larger ones are.  These have a bright, clear yellow flower unlike the ones that have a more golden color.  This bright yellow blends well with other flowers, so that I usually leave them in the garden to grow and flower.

This year, for the first time, I took a hint from the birds and planted some of the oil sunflower seeds in the circle garden where there is mostly yellow flowering plants.   I just took some seeds and poked them in the ground about every two feet.  I did this about two weeks ago and already the seedlings are about three inches high.  I feel pretty confidant that there will soon be yellow flowers to the back of the bed to complement the other yellow flowers already there.  If this experiment goes well, who knows, I may be planting more of these sunflower seeds around the garden.  I don’t think the birds will mind missing a few seeds from the feeders, after all, they gave me the idea.

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