sharonpendl said: Also many birds are stressed to find "native plants" for their diet needs. Please consider this when selecting items for your gardens. Hybrids may have beauty in our eyes, ut be worthless to the fauna seeking food.
Agreed. We do our best to provide native plants, including trees, and use the National Wildlife Federation plant and tree finder to find varieties that nourish caterpillars that are food for birds and consult with native plant experts locally. We have a bunch of natives planted including a native echinacea, tickseed (coreopsis), Blazing Star (Liatris Spicata), a large tree and even the hybrids we have are nourishing for many pollinators. We're also in the process of planting 5 Eastern Red Cedars (with at least 4 female or the berries and one male to pollinate them), which provide food for many birds and mammals as well as shelter. We can't use all natives for the modest backyard because there are natives that grow too large and spindly to work in that area (6 ft tall milkweed and black-eyed susans just won't work there) but we're constantly looking for more.
In addition, we're leading two larger community projects, including a coastal outdoor and nature center we're building on a major migration pathway that will have all native plants, and working with an area business that has a lot of square footage of unplanted space taken over by Mugwort that we're trying to convert to all native shrubs and trees.
