Getting Started with Planting

If you are ready to start or expand your garden, a great way to begin is by determining the dimensions of your garden space, observing the amount of sunlight your site gets during the day, deciding what size plants you would like to have e.g., narrow vs. wide or short vs. tall, and deciding how much maintenance you are able to provide for your garden. Next, you will want to decide what plants to get. Thinking about categories of plants can help you decide what to get: do you want to get bird friendly trees, vines, shrubs or flowers, for example? Another way to think about plants is to think about what they offer to birds. Grasses and forbs offer seeds, flowers offer nectar, some plants have fruit in summer (e.g. serviceberry, mulberry), some in autumn (e.g. dogwood) and some in winter (e.g. crabapple and winterberry). And some plants produce nuts or seeds that offer food in winter, such as oaks, hickories, and conifers.