Native Plants for Birds and Pollinators

What Birds and Pollinators Need Through the Year

Before picking plants, it helps to list the jobs a planting has to do. Birds and pollinating insects need five things, and a good plan covers all of them in every season:

• Flowers from early spring to frost. Nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies, moths, flies, and hummingbirds, with no long gaps.
• Fruit and seed from summer into winter. Summer fruit for nesting birds, fat-rich fall fruit for migrants, and long-lasting fruit and seed for the cold months.
• Host plants for caterpillars. The leaves that feed caterpillars, which in turn feed nearly every baby songbird.
• Cover and nesting structure. Layers of trees, shrubs, grasses, and ground litter where animals can nest, roost, overwinter, and escape predators.
• Water. A shallow, clean source for drinking and bathing.

Plan for Bloom From Early Spring to Frost

The hungriest moments for pollinators are the ends of the season. In early spring, bumble bee queens and solitary bees come out of the ground with almost nothing open. In fall, bees, late butterflies, and migrating monarchs are fueling up when summer flowers are done. A yard that only blooms in June misses both.

Clemson Extension suggests aiming for at least three different species in bloom in each part of the growing season, and planting each species in a mass about three feet wide, so bees can work one kind of flower efficiently instead of hunting for scattered single plants.^[1] Trees and shrubs count here too: a single flowering redbud or serviceberry puts out more spring blossoms than a whole bed of perennials.

Host Plants: Feeding the Caterpillars That Feed Baby Birds

Here is the part most bird plantings miss. Even birds that eat seeds and fruit as adults raise their nestlings mostly on insects, and caterpillars are the main course. The National Wildlife Federation, drawing on Doug Tallamy's research, notes that a pair of Carolina chickadees needs between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars to raise a single brood.^[4]

Caterpillars are picky. Many can only eat the plants they evolved with, so a yard full of non-native shrubs can look green and still be nearly empty of bird food. A small group of native plants does most of the work. Oaks top the list, supporting more kinds of caterpillars than any other trees across much of the country, and native cherries, willows, and goldenrods also rank near the top.^[5] Some well-known pairings:

• Milkweeds are the host plants monarch caterpillars depend on.
• Spicebush hosts the spicebush swallowtail.
• Pawpaw hosts the zebra swallowtail.
• Golden alexanders host the black swallowtail.
• Native violets host fritillary butterflies.^[6]

A host plant is doing its job when its leaves have holes in them. A little chewing in June is what a full nest box looks like from the plant's side.

Cover and Nesting Structure for Birds

Food is only useful if animals feel safe getting to it. Think in layers: a canopy tree or two, smaller understory trees, a shrub layer, grasses and flowers, and leaf litter on the ground. Each layer holds different birds and insects, and the more layers you have, the more kinds of wildlife the same piece of ground will carry.

• Group shrubs into clumps or hedgerows rather than spacing them out as single specimens. Dense, twiggy thickets are where catbirds, thrashers, cardinals, and sparrows nest and hide.
• Include some evergreen cover. Eastern red cedar gives birds a place to shelter from wind and cold rain in winter, and juncos, sparrows, and warblers use its dense foliage for roosting.^[7]
• Save heavy pruning for late winter, before birds start nesting, and leave a few dead branches and snags standing where they are safe.
• Keep feeders and water close to cover, so small birds have somewhere to dive when a hawk comes through.

Leave the Seed Heads, Stems, and Leaves

The easiest wildlife habitat is the cleanup you skip. Fall tidying removes food and winter shelter right when both are scarcest.

• Seed heads. Coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, asters, goldenrods, and native grasses carry seed that goldfinches, sparrows, and juncos pick at through the winter. Leave them standing.
• Stems. Many small native bees nest in hollow or pithy stems. Oklahoma State Extension suggests cutting spent stems in spring to varying heights between 8 and 24 inches, so the stubble becomes next year's nest sites.^[8]
• Bare ground. The Xerces Society estimates that about 70 percent of native bees nest in the ground. Leave some sunny, bare, untilled patches, and skip thick bark mulch in those spots.^[9]
• Leaf litter. Rake leaves off the lawn and into your beds instead of bagging them. Bumble bee queens and many moths and butterflies spend the winter in leaf litter and the loose soil beneath it, and ground-feeding birds find insects there in spring.

Skip broad-spectrum insecticides entirely. A planting meant to feed caterpillars and bees cannot also be sprayed to kill them.

Add a Shallow Water Source

Water draws birds that never touch a feeder. Cornell Lab of Ornithology recommends a birdbath no deeper than about an inch at the edges and two inches in the middle, with a stone or branch in the water so small birds can stand and drink.^[10] Keep it within a short hop of shrubs, scrub it out and refill it every few days, and add a few flat stones to a pan of water on the ground for bees and butterflies to land on.

Proven Native Plants for Birds and Pollinators, by Role

These are well-documented natives with broad ranges across the central and eastern United States. Ranges and soil needs vary, so check your state's native plant society or extension service before you buy, and favor plants native to your own region.

Early bloom

• Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) flowers before it leafs out and is an important early food for bumble bees and carpenter bees, and leafcutter bees use its leaves to build nests.^[11]
• Serviceberry (Amelanchier species) is among the first woody plants to flower, feeding insects when little else is open, and it fruits again in June.^[12]
• Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) offers nodding red and yellow flowers that suit returning hummingbirds and long-tongued bees.
• Golden alexanders (Zizia aurea) bloom in spring for small bees and flies and double as a black swallowtail host.

Summer bloom

• Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) is a bumble bee magnet for weeks in midsummer.
• Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) feeds bees and butterflies in summer and goldfinches later, if you leave the seed heads.
• Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is a nectar plant and a monarch host in one, and it handles dry, sunny ground.
• Mountain mint (Pycnanthemum species) is plain to look at and usually covered in small bees and wasps.
• Winged sumac (Rhus copallinum) blooms in the middle to late summer stretch, with dense flower clusters that bees and butterflies visit for nectar.^[16]

Fall bloom

• Goldenrods (Solidago species) are a key late food for bees and butterflies, and they do not cause hay fever. That is ragweed, which blooms at the same time and spreads its pollen on the wind.^[13] Some goldenrods spread hard, so choose clump-forming kinds for small beds.
• New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and aromatic aster (S. oblongifolium) carry purple flowers into fall, often until frost.

Summer fruit

• Serviceberry berries ripen in June, which is why it is also called Juneberry.^[12]
• Blackberries and black raspberries (Rubus species) give fruit and thorny nesting cover in the same tangle.
• American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) carries big flat flower clusters in early summer and heavy clusters of dark fruit in late summer.

Fall and winter fruit

• Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) and spicebush (Lindera benzoin) bear fat-rich fruit that fall migrants strip quickly.^[2]
• American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a southern shrub with clusters of purple fruit in fall that birds keep eating into winter.^[14]
• Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) likes moist soil, and its red fruit persists through winter on bare branches.^[3]
• Winged sumac fruit clusters hold on the plant into winter.
• Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) females carry blue berry-like cones that cedar waxwings and many other birds eat through fall and winter.^[7]

Host plants for caterpillars

• Oaks (Quercus species) are the single best tree you can plant for caterpillars, and they are worth planting even though you will not see them at full size for years.^[5]
• Black cherry (Prunus serotina) feeds a long list of caterpillars and gives birds summer fruit.
• Milkweeds, spicebush, pawpaw, and violets each host particular butterflies, listed above.

Evergreen cover

• Eastern red cedar grows almost anywhere in the central and eastern states and makes dense winter shelter.
• American holly (Ilex opaca) gives food and evergreen cover for birds where it is native, mostly the eastern and southern states.^[15]

Where Winged Sumac Fits in the Plan

We grow and sell winged sumac, so we are biased, but it earns a spot in this plan by doing two jobs at once. Its flowers open in the middle to late summer window, roughly July into September depending on where you are, which bridges the gap between the June flush and the goldenrods.^[16] Then its fruit clusters ripen in fall and persist into winter, so it lands in the late fruit group with winterberry and red cedar.

It also builds structure. Winged sumac spreads by root suckers into a thicket, which is exactly the dense shrub cover birds want, and it does it on dry, poor, sunny ground where most fruiting shrubs struggle. The same habit means it belongs on a fence line, a slope, a field edge, or a back corner, not in the middle of a tidy bed. Because it carries male and female flowers on separate plants, plant a group from seed rather than a single shrub so you end up with fruiting females.

For the full detail on its bird list, pollinators, and host-plant role, see wildlife benefits of winged sumac. To grow it, start with our planting guide and the steps to scarify and cold stratify the seeds.

Common Questions About Planting for Birds and Pollinators