Winter Birds and Blooms

Mahonia 'charity' in full bloom

I love feeding the birds.  Actually, I should clarify...I love the idea of feeding the birds, but I don't actually do it.   Oh, I have bird feeders in the garden--seed feeders, hummingbird feeders...and I even have the bird food (tightly sealed from rodents of course).  But transferring the food to the feeders?  That doesn't always happen.  It's on my to-do list, but feeding the wild creatures tends to fall down on the list, after the feeding of three children, four goats and one rabbit.

I realized years ago that if I wanted to keep birds in the garden, (and I do), then I was going to have to rely on the garden to feed them.  This means filling the garden with plants the birds love, leaving the perennials with their seedy, spent flower blooms uncut through the winter, and keeping the flower beds on the wild and messy side.  Rarely does laziness work so well for gardeners.  And since I tend to like these "bird-feeding" plants, and because buying plants never seems to fall on the bottom of my to-do list, we have a definite win-win situation.

It might seem like a daunting task to fill a garden with interesting winter plants, but not in the Northwest.  Here, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to great plants for all seasons.  And of my many favorites, the Mahonia, 'Charity' is near the top.  Not only does this plant cheer up the winter garden with luminous spires of bright yellow blossoms, but it also does double duty as a no-fuss hummingbird feeder.  So, even though I forget to fill my feeder with sugar water, I still have plenty of the delightful Anna hummingbirds overwintering in my garden.

So long as it's not stormy, January can be a very soothing time to spend in the garden.  And if you find your garden in need of some winter color with bird appeal, I highly recommend adding this plant.  For a more detailed description of 'Charity' Mahonia visit this link to Fine Gardening.