GARDEN DESIGN RECIPE OF THE WEEK: CHRISTMAS TREE FOR BIRDS

Happy Holidays!  I don't celebrate any religious holiday, but I do love the festivities and sparkle of this season.  This year I decided to splurge on a real tree, but hate to waste my artificial tree... so, I'm going to use it to decorate the front yard.  But instead of using artificial decorations on it, I'm going to turn it into a Christmas tree for the birds!  (Squirrels and field mice will also enjoy this.)

INGREDIENTS 

1 Artificial Christmas tree in stand (you can also use a real cut or living tree)

Any combination of the following:

20 sprays of millet (available wherever pet bird food is sold)

Several clusters of hard berrries:  Holly, currant, viburnum, etc.

10 small apples (Lady apples are perfect)

1 package of dried figs (make sure they don't contain sulfites)

1 cluster of red grapes

1 bag of rice cakes

1 bag of unsalted unshelled peanuts

1 large box of raisins

 

3 bags of raw cranberries

Several pine cones

Wild bird suet cakes

Mesh socks filled with niger seed

 

Dried ears of corn

1 bundle of green and/or red raffia

1 large package of soft moss (available at craft stores)

Pre-made bird food decorations (available online or at Wild Bird stores)

Optional for California and Arizona:  2 small tube style hummingbird feeders with clear nectar

DIRECTIONS

String the cranberries, raisins, peanuts and dried fruit into garlands or bundles with natural cotton twine.

Tie berries and millet sprays into bundles with raffia.

Poke hole through apples and rice cakes and string with cotton twine leaving hanger loop.

Stick clumps of moss among the branches.

Stuff pine cones with suet and place among branches.

LIGHTING:  For lighting, its ok to use outdoor tree lights if they are not plugged in during the day.  A safe alternative would be to use a low voltage spotlight to shine on the tree at night.

Replace materials as consumed!

A PLUMMET-MEASURED FACE: Garden Statuary

I always recommend adding a statue or some kind of sculpted object in a garden, for the following reasons:

BALANCE:  A well designed garden contains balance of all its elements.  Visual weight, textural contrast, layout.  And too, the balance of hard and soft, natural and manufactured.

An elegant bit of sculpture gracefully introduces the manufactured element.  It also gives the eye a place to rest amongst the multiple textures and colors of the plants. 

   

DEPTH:  Hedges and large shrubs stand their ground staunchly.  The eye quickly dismisses them as a solid mass, a mere divider of a flat plane.  But imagine, as you walk past the tall hedge, a gleam of white marble, and suddenly the block becomes a shell, and space curves.

     

SURPRISE:  My childhood memories of gardens feel magical, because they are about surprise.  A small tortoise under a bush laying eggs.  An unexpected red bridge in a Chinese garden.  As adults in a stern world, we need surprises, like a dragon in the apple orchard, to remember how the delights of magic. 

 

CONNECTION:  By housing a man made object, the garden is integrated into the overall home both symbolically and stylistically. It becomes another room in which to express your taste.

   

FOCUS :  Similarly, our interior rooms have focus:  A fireplace or television, a dining table, the kitchen counter, the bed.  Garden rooms benefit from having similar focal points.

     

Fountain and garden design by Modular Garden UK 

PURPOSE:  Water features attract birds and provide soothing sound to block unwanted noise.  Carved stone benches provide resting spots.  Wrought iron arches guide you through the garden.  Dramatic pots hold plants in spots where they might otherwise not grow.    

 Photo credit to 'Ollie Girl' (Donna) at Flickr

Last, and most important:

BEAUTY:  This needs no explanation.

  

   

 

Photo credit to Kelly O on Flickr

     

 

THANKSGIVING FEAST FOR THE BIRDS

My Thanksgiving traditions include spreading a feast for the wild birds.

 

 Since I don't grow all of their native food plants, I resort to putting out extra sunflower and thistle seeds, suet with peanuts, fruit, and mealworms.

But I thought it would be appropriate, since this is a garden rather than a avian gourmet blog, to mention some plants that are food sources for birds (and many butterflies as well.)

The list focuses on my Zone 9 habitat, but many of these are good in other regions as well.  Some of the plants bear fruit which attracts the fruit eating birds, others attract insects which feed the bug eating birds.

All of these plants are suitable for a residential garden.

For berry eating birds such as Cedar Waxwings, Robins, Thrashers, Thrushes, Western Blue Birds, Mockingbirds, Towhees, Western Tanagers and Grosbeaks, try these pretty bushes:

Barberry (Berberis nevinii)

Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica)

Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana)

Gooseberries and Currents (Ribes spp)

Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium)

Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia)

 Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia)

Wild strawberry (Fragaria spp.)

For seed eating birds like Warblers, Finches, Goldfinches, Sparrows, Doves, Towhees, Juncos, Bushtits and Quail, try these:

Buckwheat (Eriogonum)

Bunchgrasses (Nasella spp.)

California Lilac (Ceanothus spp.)

California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)

Sedges (Carex spp.)

Thistle (Silybum marianum)

This list doesn't include the zillions of wild and cultivated flowers that also feed birds, but you can find information about this at

http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/site/backyard_birds/top_ten/flowers.aspx

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

 

Photo credit to Jerry DeBoer 

GLIMPSES INTO MAGIC

Gardens allow us glimpses of magic. 


As in, May I Present! The garden equivalent of a rabbit from a hat, or, "I don't remember planting that."  An eight foot sunflower in the herb bed, one year.  A forest of Queen Anne's lace in the rose garden, another.  Always a surprise!


or...BEST OF ALL....delightful glimpses into the world of other creatures.  Some are obvious, like watching the blue jays shove peanuts under your roof shingles, or Gulf Frittilary butterflies playing tag through the passionflower vine. 


But the truly magical ones happen when you focus on the most minute of worlds.


One of the best bits of magic, to me, occurred when I was sitting one afternoon next to the Iceberg rose hedge.  The blossoms are lovely in a mass, but individually, there's nothing particularly arresting about a spent iceberg flower. That is, unless you are a teeny, teeny wasp.


A bit of sunlight sparked his wing and it caught my eye as he hovered over the center of the rose.  Suddenly, I could see through his eyes -- not boring limp petals, but rather a vast ampitheatre of rich golden pollen and nectar! 


He hovered another second, perhaps ruling out the presence of danger (praying mantis? housefly?)and then delicately landed into the center of the rose.


I held very still to watch him move from one miniscule stamen to the other, taking his fill of nourishment.  What a treasure this was to him!


I was reminded, yet again, of how a garden supports life in ways we don't even imagine.  For that infitesimal speck of life, my tattered rosebush was all he needed to keep flying through the vast world of Wasp, to perform his chores.  When he moved to the next flower, he pollinated it.  A rose hip formed, which fed the mockingbird (or became a nutritious toy for my parrot.) 


This is magic. 

















 Joining the party here every Thursday.

If A Bird Can Do It So Can I, or Picking Up Worms

I knew that I had become a Real Gardener when I held a worm without shrieking like a girl and flinging her into the bushes. 

Worms don't have a lot of obvious clout, at least compared to lions, gorillas, mankind... so Mother Nature gave them one the best escape devices, ever.  SQUIRMING.  For those of you who have never picked up a worm, well, let me say that having as squishy little tube start writhing and twisting just feels so GROSS!  I mean, those suckers are muscular, and for 52 years (not counting years 1 to 5) it evoked instant finger revulsion and shameful involuntary vocalizations.

(I'm sure that any fisherman reading this blog --perhaps unlikely, but you never know) is snorting into their bait box at this, but as I presume fishermen like to say, "bite me.")

So, okay, back to the Worm Breakthrough.  It was a mercy mission.  I was digging, and you gardeners all know what happens then -- you uncover a lot of halved worms, but sometimes there's a nice fat one that's still alive and is freaking out at being exposed.  I used to scoop them over with the trowel and throw dirt on them, but one day I really wanted to move that gorgeous fattie into a worm deficient bed, and she kept flinging herself off the trowel.  So I sucked it up and reached down and gently squeezed her between my fingers.  She ERUPTED into a twisting frenzy and I shrieked like a girl and flung her into the bushes.

This waste of worm really offended my frugal gardener's sensibility, so when the next survivor appeared, I was ready.  I picked it up, it squirmed, and I was ok.  BREAKTHROUGH!  I was so pleased with my new talent that I would call my husband (Mr. Squeamish) over to show off. HA!  I can pick up worms!

Now that I can hold worms, I show off around clients whenever I can.  I love it when they squeal and say "ooh, how can you do that!" and I think it makes me seem more professional to them, somehow.