Plant collection

Native Plants for Birds

Native plants for birds are the plants that occur naturally in your region — and Audubon's argument is blunt: without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive ¹.

The 17 species profiled on this site are grouped below by what they give birds; each links to a full profile with the Wildflower Center's native range and growing conditions.

Cardinal flower — one of the native plants for birds that depends on hummingbirds for pollination — Photo: USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Native plants for birds: nectar and seed

Hummingbirds: cardinal flower ², wild bergamot ³ and trumpet honeysuckle ⁴. Finches: common sunflower ⁵, purple coneflower ⁶ and black-eyed susan ⁷, left standing after bloom.

Native plants for fruit, nuts and cover

Early summer fruit: Canada serviceberry ⁸ and red mulberry ¹⁰. Late summer and fall: American elderberry ⁹ and flowering dogwood ¹¹. Winter: winterberry ¹², American holly ¹³, eastern red cedar ¹⁴ and Virginia creeper ¹⁵. Nuts and seed: American beech ¹⁶ and paper birch ¹⁷. Wet ground: common buttonbush ¹⁸.

Audubon's benefits list for natives — low maintenance once established, less water, no need for the pesticides that make lawns poor habitat, and carbon storage by long-lived trees — applies to every plant above ¹. Use Audubon's zip-code database to confirm which are native to your county ¹.

Why native plants first

Native plants are those that occur naturally in the region where they evolved, and Audubon calls them the ecological basis on which birds depend: without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive ¹. The scale matters — a native oak supports over 500 species of caterpillars where a ginkgo hosts five, and it takes more than 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees ¹. Most nursery landscaping plants are alien species, so choosing natives is the single landscaping decision with the clearest effect on bird populations ¹.

The alternative is what most yards already have. Audubon notes that manicured lawn now covers over 40 million acres of the United States as a green monoculture, that the traditional suburban lawn carries on average ten times more chemical pesticide per acre than farmland, and that the continental U.S. has lost 150 million acres of habitat and farmland to sprawl ¹. Every bed of natives that replaces turf is habitat that lawn cannot be, and long-lived native trees such as oaks and maples also store carbon ¹.

Check the native range before buying: the Wildflower Center record for this species lists the states and provinces where it occurs naturally ², and Audubon's zip-code native plant database narrows that to your area and the bird groups each plant attracts ¹. Once established, native plants generally need little maintenance and far less water than lawn, and they do not need the pesticides that make a yard poor bird habitat ¹.

Each plant above links to its own profile with the Wildflower Center's native range, so you can confirm it occurs naturally where you live before buying ¹.

Frequently asked questions

Why do birds need native plants?

Because native plants host the insects birds feed their young: a native oak supports over 500 caterpillar species, a ginkgo five, and one chickadee brood needs 6,000-plus caterpillars ¹.

How do I find native plants for my area?

Audubon's native plants database takes a zip code and lists local natives and the bird groups they attract ¹; each profile here also lists the Wildflower Center's native range.