Follow these tips to create a bush-inspired garden that encourages chirpy visitors to your home

A BUSH-INSPIRED garden will encourage chirpy visitors to your home. Follow Tony Fawcett’s tips to create a your own private escape to attract feathered friends.

Kangaroo Paw Bush Revolution, supplied by Ramm Botanicals *** For Home Magazine editorial use only. For other publications and uses, please contact Herald Sun Home magazine editor on [e-mail] Picture: Supplied

A GARDEN can be a soothing, private escape from day-to-day pressures — but sharing it with others can increase its serenity.

Birds can bring a garden alive, filling it with serene sights and sounds. Yet birds, particularly native Australian birds, can be a little shy. We need to tempt them into our backyards — ideally by giving them a bit of Aussie bush to perch in.

Make your yard bird friendly and the pay-off is more than aesthetic: any birds you attract will feast on insects that might otherwise feast on your plants. In turn, this reduces the need for using potentially harmful insecticides around your home.

This native is called Hakea Stockdale Sensation. Picture: Supplied

Birdwatchers say the three greatest drawcards for native birds are suitable habitat (shelter, flying room and protection from predators), food (both nectar and seed-producing plants) and water.

A broad range of plants caters to birds of all sizes, but which plants? While many plants are attractive to birds, Australian natives really get them tweeting.

Planting a few sweeps of grevilleas, particularly red ones, usually works a charm, offering feathered visitors both protective foliage and nectar. Other bird-attracting natives include bottlebrushes (callistemons), banksias, hakeas, melaleucas, wattles (Acacia), correas and native grasses.

For a non-native, try a drooping, red-hued fuchsia or two: honeyeaters love them.

SEEDS OF SELF-RELIANCE

Seeds of self-reliance

While it’s fun to put out seed for birds, most experts advise against it as it makes birds reliant on hand-outs and, in times of shortage, they’re less able to find their own.

And while we’re on the topic of self-feeding, it is true birds are likely to pinch the odd piece of fruit from your trees, and could possibly kick around your mulch while hunting for worms and insects.

In the great scheme of things, however, this is a small price to pay for all the gains. And besides, inexpensive netting can be used to protect your fruit trees.

Birds are attracted to native species like this Banksia. Picture: Supplied

JUST ADD WATER

Just add water

Whether for drinking or splashing in on a sunny day, water is a great tool for luring birds into a garden.

Most gardens have room for a birdbath, and they come in many styles and prices. Make sure yours has a lip birds can perch on, and clean it regularly (including replacing the water) to avoid spreading disease. Birdbaths also need to be out of reach of cats.

Also consider setting up perches in nearby trees, where birds can survey the scene before swooping in for a drink.

HOUSING SOLUTIONS

Housing solutions

With our expanding suburbia there’s a critical shortage in the avian-home market. Consider installing birdhouses or nesting boxes, preferably high in trees and out of the reach of cats (a metal collar around the base of a tree will prevent cats from climbing it), where birds can make a more permanent home.

Nesting boxes high in trees and out of reach of cats can encourage birds to stay. Picture: Supplied

Nesting boxes can be bought online or make your own from a few timber offcuts.

Finally, when all the hard work is done, get yourself a good bird-identification book (or check out Birdlife Australia).

Discovering which birds have been fluttering about in your patch is always a pleasure.

PAWS FOR BIRDS

Paws for birds

A must for attracting native birds, especially honeyeaters and wattlebirds, is kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos).

Birds love Australian natives like the Bush Pioneer variety of Kangaroo Paw.

When a bird thrusts its beak into a tubular kangaroo paw flower to get at its nectar, the flower’s pollen-covered stamens flick the bird’s head.

Then when the bird visits the next flower it transfers this pollen, aiding the plant’s fertilisation.

Thanks to a 20-year breeding program by TV gardener Angus Stewart and wholesale nursery Ramm Botanicals, many new kangaroo paw varieties are available in nurseries.

More Birdlife Australia, birdlife.org.au

TIPS AND TRICKS TO ATTRACT BIRDS

Tips and tricks to attract birds

• Birds love to swoop about so include a few open spaces in your bush garden, and vary your plants’ heights and their shape.

• Plant drifts of native grasses. These are seed heaven for native birds and are a favourite hiding place.

• Look for local-growing native plants common to your area. These should be easier to get started and already like the local climate.

• Choose plants that flower at different times to spread the bird appeal. Buy more than one of the same species to create a thicket effect.

• Keep cats and birds apart. Cats are born hunters and will figure out how to catch prey even while wearing a collar with a bell. A few prickly plants, such as hakeas, can help protect small birds from predators.

• Don’t be too quick to cut down trees with hollowed-out trunks (unless they’re a safety hazard). Kookaburras, lorikeets and other birds nest in the hollows.

Originally published as Follow these tips to create a bush-inspired garden that encourages chirpy visitors to your home