How to Plant Flowers Around a Bird Bath
You love growing flowers and your husband loves watching birds. You can have the best of both worlds by planting flowers around a bird bath. The bird bath garden can be as simple as just digging up the soil and planting some flowers or you can make a small garden with the bird bath as the central focus. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Garden edging
- Bird bath
- Shovel
- Wheelbarrow
- Potting soil
- Organic matter or compost
- Soil Tester
- Lime or Sulfur
- Flowers
- Mulch
Instructions
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Mark the location for the bird bath garden. Dig out this area, going down almost the height of the garden edging. Place removed soil in the wheelbarrow. Remove grass, weeds, rocks and other garden debris.
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Put garden edging around the base of the birdbath in either a single or multiple levels. This edging can be plastic molded concrete stones, natural stones or landscaping timber.
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Place the birdbath inside the edging. Depending upon where this small garden is located in the yard, the bird bath can be in the center or off-set; for instance, if the garden is against the edge of the yard, the birdbath should be placed towards the back of the garden.
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Pour the potting soil and organic matter or compost into the wheelbarrow with the garden soil. Mix it up and test the soil; amend it with lime or sulfur to suit the needs of the flowers selected for the bird bath garden. Shovel the soil mixture back into the garden; fill it until the soil reaches the upper edge of the garden edging.
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Select flowers for the bird bath garden. Best Garden Bird Bath recommends using flowers that are native to your area as, "they are the most likely to do well and will also produce food suitable for the local bird population." Avian Web lists a variety of flowers that birds love including zinnias, snapdragons, purple coneflower, cosmos, columbines, fox glove, cardinal flower and lantana. Plants are a better choice as opposed to flower seeds, as the birds might eat the seeds before they develop into plants.
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Set the flowers-still in their containers-on top of the soil in the bird bath garden. Adjust their position to allow for symmetry and to give the plants room to grow. Plant the flowers in the garden and water to settle the soil. Water the flowers deeply every day until they have settled into the garden and new growth appears; this generally takes several weeks. At that point, water the flowers on a regular basis, according to their needs.
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Put mulch around the flowers. This will nourish the plants, keep the soil moist and retard the growth of weeds without the use of chemical herbicides. Best Garden Bird Bath advises against using chemical herbicides, pesticides or fungicides in the garden, as they could harm the birds.
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Leave some of the heads on the flowers once the blooms fade. Diane Porter in her article, "Planting Flowers for Birds" on birdwatching, explains the dried seed heads attract birds.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Paula K. Parker
