There's a little info on Georgia native plants for birds at this link and if you scroll down a bit specific birds are mentioned. You can also contact the Georgia Native Plant Society and ask them. The email is at the bottom on the left. You can join and they probably hold a monthly meeting open to the public. I emailed The Florida Native Plant Society with my question as to where to find a native plant nursery and received a source which I found a map to at the nursery's website. I went there today and had a lot of my questions answered there at the nursery. Oh, and the nursery also gives a 10% discount to Native Plant Society members. :)

Garden4: Not too sure on space as that wasn't a consideration of mine, but serviceberry, elderberry, native shrub dogwoods and viburnums are the ones that have been repeatedly recommended. I find that the birds here like red cedar, but I'm not sure if that would grow in your zone. How big is your lot again?

Jen, thanks for the links. I've got GNPS bookmarked, but unfortunately, just about everything they do is based in Atlanta and I'm about two hours away from Atlanta. I will try emailing them, though, and ask if they've considered expanding some of their plant sales and plant "rescues" state-wide. :) The landscaping for birds link was very helpful, thanks!

Von, I'm in the suburbs. I've got a large yard, as suburbs go, but it's nothing that would support more than four or five large trees, and it's already got three large pine trees, and a pear tree and a peach tree that were here when I moved in. I'd really like to add some kind of large hardwood, but there's just not enough room for a canopy size tree. My next choice is the understory trees/large shrubs, so in that line, I've got a shrub dogwood, a chokecherry, a hackberry, a mulberry, two young pawpaws and I'm trying to find a good serviceberry to add. I want a species or cultivar of serviceberry that won't get more than about 20 feet high at most and that won't require much care as far as keeping it disease free. I might be able to add a small cherry tree, too, but that would be about the limit of trees I could fit in the yard. I already have two viburnums and three more on the way in the spring. I've tried to grow two elderberries and they both died; I don't know what the problem is, but I'm not going to try elderberries again, at least not for a few years. I'm adding a couple of blueberry bushes and some muscadine grape vines very soon, and I've got an eastern ninebark coming in next month. The only other shrubs I have are lantana (the birds keep planting more), turk's cap, beautyberry, a huge gardenia, Joe-pye weed, butterfly bush, some bush hibiscus, a Clerondendrum, and some roses that were here when I moved in. I don't particularly care for roses, but these have been mostly behaving themselves and providing the occasional rose hip for the birds, so I've left them alone. I'm planning to take the butterfly bush out this year (since I recently learned it's considered a minor invasive in GA) and replace it with some kind of native similar in wildlife benefit.

I'm looking for ideas of what types of birds (and other animals) like what types of plants, so I can have a good variety in my yard. I do have a little more room for planting perennials and vines, since I can fit more of those in together, and I've got some seed producing perennials and nectar producing perennials and vines already. I'm planning to add more natives this year and get rid of some of the non-natives that were here when I moved in two years ago. When I moved in, the yard was practically useless to most wildlife, nothing but lawn, roses, boxwoods, and the pine trees and pear & peach trees; most of the species of animals that were here were invasive pests. There were only a few species of birds in the yard on a regular basis and about half of those were exotic pests. I've been slowly changing out the pest plants for natives, and hoping the animals will follow suit in time. It was quite a change from my previous house, which had over 40 species of birds, several species of reptiles & amphibians, dozens and dozens of insects & spiders, and about a dozen mammal species on a regular basis. That yard was even smaller than my current one, but it was a much more natural setting and it had been long established. I hope this yard will build up to that level over time.

There's a terrific book called Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Urban and Rural America, by Gary Hightshoe. This has exactly the information you seek. It tells you how many of which kinds of species eat each type of plant, and it tells you which species grow together in nature so you can make your garden more natural.

There's no one single best wildlifei plant. Different animals eat different things at different times of year, and some plants produce some years but not others. The way to have a wildlife friendly garden is to mimic nature by planting a wide variety of native species.

Here are several more for you myrica cerifera southern wax myrtle also native cherry trees and native holly trees I know the cedar waxwing likes these berries I'm sure the thrushes like them too also Malus angustifolia southern crabapple . Hope that helps. Sarah

Here's a website for you, Sarah

Here is a link that might be useful: Audubon plants for common birds

It sounds like you've got or are going to have the bulk of what you need to draw the birds in. I would add some Ilex, I just put in decidua and verticillata both for late season food source. The Mockingbirds especially love them.

Most of my warblers have come in during migration (except of course for the Pine and Yellow-rump), I've also had vireos and other things by not using pesticides, they're all bug eaters. It's really cool to watch them searching the tree tops for food. The pines should get you woodpeckers and Brown-headed Nuthatches as well as migrants. Do you have an oak? If you can find room, an oak will draw lots of different kinds of birds!

Try to make a thicket to draw the thrushes. Plant some shrubs in a grouping (maybe in a corner of the yard under taller trees) and plant some type of bramble with them. I've got one area that I pretty much ignore that has smilax and other greenbrier growing in it and the birds love those areas.

If you have room and don't have a rodent problem you can put in a brush pile (it can even be hidden behind shrubs). That will draw wintering sparrows.

Elaine, thanks for the book title! I'll look for that on Amazon. I am trying to make the yard mimic nature, but there's only so much I can do in this setting. I'm working on creating different sections of the yard (like a brush pile, a more open area, etc) and some better natural nesting areas in the yard.

Sarah, thanks for the link! I was thinking about getting some wax myrtles, but I've been having trouble determining if they require 2 plants to set fruit. Some sources say they do, some sources say they don't, and some sources say that some individuals (even within the same species) are self-fertile and some individuals aren't. Since I don't have much room left for large shrubs, if I got a wax myrtle, it'd have to be one of the dwarf cultivars and I've heard that some of those aren't as attractive to the birds. So I'm not sure if I want to try a wax myrtle or not...I'm trying to find alternatives that are just as attractive to most of the same kinds of birds.

Croakie, do you know of any dwarf or small forms of Ilex that are attractive to birds? I've heard that the birds aren't fond of some of the cultivars. I looked at your profile and you're very close to me! I live just over the river, so probably anything you're growing would grow for me. I don't use any pesticides; the only exception to that is when we get fire ants taking over the yard. I use the stuff that breaks down quickly and hope for the best...if I don't use it every once in a while to keep them in check, they start spreading over the entire yard and all the flower beds. I don't mind regular ants at all, but I can't deal with fire ants everywhere. This yard didn't even have a lot of insects when I moved in, so not too many insect-eating birds were here. I'm trying to attract more with nectar producing plants; I've found sweet alyssum to be excellent at that. I've got LOTS of woodpeckers (mostly red bellied and downy, but other species on occasion), brown-headed nuthatches, chickadees, and titmice that frequent the pine trees. There are a few little scrawny oaks and some kind of Prunus trees in the range of 6-8 feet tall growing along my fenceline in a little thicket that's obviously been ignored for years. Most of them were being strangled by Japanese honeysuckle, but I ripped as much of that out as I could. I've got a corner of the yard, next to those young trees, that's got a huge, old Lady Banks rose that's formed a sort of weeping shape over the fence and several dead shrubs. The "weeping" part of it stretches several feet in diameter, so it provides good cover. The birds love that, and I've added cast off Christmas trees (mostly firs, I think) in a pile back there, too. Whenever I cut lantana branches or trim large shrubs or trees, those limbs go on the pile. Three pairs of towhees, several white-throated sparrows and chipping sparrows, a couple of brown thrashers, a couple of Carolina wrens, and the occasional mockingbird forage in and around that pile. A lot of other birds dive for cover in the Christmas trees (they hold their needles for a very long time) when something startles them. I've got American bittersweet and some native ferns growing near that area, too, sort of transitioning into the rest of the yard. That's the area that I see the most birds in, but part of that is because most of the rest of the yard is still lawn or young shrubs and trees that haven't grown large enough to be attractive to wildlife.

Garden, I planted larger cultivars of Ilex and I'm not sure of any small ones that are available right now. Nurseries Caroliniana has a new dwarf yaupon but it's only available wholesale right now, it's beautiful but I don't know if the birds like the berries, the ones I saw were still covered but a lot of times they're the last to be eaten.

Your yard sounds great. My yard is still a work in progress, but over the last 5 years of landscaping (especially the last 2 years) I've seen a consistant increase in species and numbers of birds (as well as snakes, frogs, toads and others). It takes a little time but as the yard matures you'll see the birds showing up more and more.

In case anybody else was looking for the same info as me, I found this link that's really helpful. It's from Pine Ridge Gardens, and they sell everything that they have in this list (I think); very useful list at a glance for people who want to attract birds.

Apparently, the word is already spreading about my yard, yay! There were cedar waxwings, lots of goldfinches, a pileated woodpecker, lots of robins, and a few bluebirds in my yard for the first time this winter. There are already some spring migrants starting to arrive, so I'm impatient to see if anything else new stops by on the way north or even decides to stay for the summer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Attracting birds

I am friends with the lady who writes the weekly bird column in our city's newspaper. She says that in this area (Eastern Canada) the single most "bird friendly" plant in any garden is cedars. They offer food, shelter, places to nest, all year round.

The best native plant for attracting birds in my 5-acre Michigan garden is hands-down a stand of common juniper. I see a lot of cedar waxwings especially coming in flocks to feast on the berries. Every day I look out the window and see birds darting in and out of the dense shelter of the horizontal branches on the dense stand of juniper. It's a bird haven every day. It strongly prefers dry soil here.

Another plant that loses its berries to songbirds even faster is the pale dogwood, cornus obliqua. I own much of this wetland shrub. Many different species of birds strip the berries as they ripen. They like wet shade and form thickets, so you probably don't have enough room.

Laura