When Lou Ann Harris started to create a bird-friendly environment in her Bozeman yard, there wasn’t much landscaping to work with. The yard was composed of grass and rocks. There were some arborvitae (evergreens in the Cyprus family) that didn’t do much for the birds and were under attack by voles. The first steps in transforming the yard were removing the arborvitae, removing some sod, and planting wildlife-attracting trees and shrubs such as Red-twig Dogwood, Canada Red Cherry, Colorado Blue Spruce, and Quaking Aspen.
Sacajawea Audubon Society started a program called Bird-friendly Landscaping and produced a brochure in 2018 about how to create a bird-friendly landscape that would attract birds and pollinators and be beautiful as well. Harris used the four-page brochure for ideas and inspiration as she planned her yard. The brochure gives plans for a small garden, a large island bed, and a biohedge to attract birds and provide privacy. It also gives pointers for attracting birds to your yard and provides lists of perennials, deciduous trees, evergreens, shrubs, and vines native to our area and/or attractive to the birds.
Harris created two biohedges: a large one with trees and shrubs on one side of the yard and a smaller one along her driveway. She used a local nursery to remove sod and plant the big trees and shrubs. After planting, she used drip irrigation and lots of mulch to help conserve water. She didn’t use weed mat under the mulch as she thought the birds should have access to the garden soil. She added perennials such as bee balm, penstemon, fleabane, rudbeckia, and her favorite, milkweed. Her biohedge thrived. She ordered a sign that said “Plants for Birds” and put it where people could see it and perhaps be inspired to remove sod and plant native plants.
A large biohedge provides screening as well as habitat. Photo by Lou Ann Harris.
This fall she had three new species in her yard: a Red-eyed Vireo gleaning insects from the aspen leaves, an American Redstart using the bird bath and gleaning, and a Least Flycatcher in the Canada Red Cherry tree. Wilson’s Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Western Tanagers visited for berries and insects and hummingbirds visited her flowers for nectar. So far, her yard has attracted close to 70 species.
She has good advice for all of us starting to create a bird-friendly planting: “Don’t try to take on too much. Start small and expand from there.”
The brochure, “Landscaping for Birds in Southwest Montana,” is available on the SAS website. Paper copies are available at Wild Birds Unlimited, 2047 W. Oak St., Bozeman MT.
A small biohedge dresses up a driveway. Photo by Lou Ann Harris.
A bumblebee gathers pollen from a penstemon blossom. Photo by Lou Ann Harris.
