Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 19:06:11 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jack and Julie Saba Subject: Re: Bird Friendly Gardening In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Saturday 13 March 2004 10:49, you wrote: > I would like to turn a downtown townhouse backyard into a more bird > friendly venue with native plants. > > Do any of you know where I can get reliable information on suitable > types of plants, their sizes, and the conditions they need to thrive > or or at least survive? > > Jerry Barrett I've tried several times to gather information about planting for birds. Got lots of information, but still haven't managed to put it to very good use. Some years ago the Howard County chapter of MOS printed a pamphlet called "Attacting Birds in the Maryland Piedmont." It has a section on planting for birds. Unfortunately, it does not concentrate on native plants (one of the trees they recommend is Russian Olive if I remember correctly), and some items may be hard to find (I tried to locate a Carolina Buckthorn a few years ago and was told that NO nursery would consider carrying THAT trash tree, or words to that effect). The Md NCPPC has a pamphlet titled "Native Plants of Prince George's County Maryland," with information on which plants attract what birds and mammals. Jim Statz is listed as a contributor. There is a charge of $2.00 plus shipping and handling if they mail it to you. "Native Plants of Maryland" is supposed to be available for $5.00. The phone number I have is 1-800-342-2507. I haven't tried it. http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/plants4leps.html: Some Great Plants for Attracting Birds in Central North Carolina. Many of these are also native to Md. On Sunday afternoons, Brookside Gardens hosts a "master gardener" program at their library. The "master gardeners" are friendly and helpful, if not tuned specifically to native plants that attract birds. There is supposed to be someone working part time at Behnke's in Beltsville who is familiar with native plants. The name I was given by the folks at Brookside Gardens is Alice Eichman (may be misspelled). Good luck. Jack Saba Prince George's County -- jlsaba@mindspring.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================