Plant forum | plant this

Home
Plant This Forum

in your garden - welcome

Posted by STIVAT 8 Jun 2022 - 1:26:00 PM

Hi gardeners
We have planted 3 native frangipani trees along our back fence to screen out a neighbour's extension. They are growing well but for a flowering native tree they don't seem to attract any birds at all. Is this because they are tropical and not appealing to local birds? We are in Brunswick and often get rainbow lorikeets and wattle birds in our area but they don't seem to be attracted to these trees. Would we be better to replace one or more with an indigenous flowering gum or something else?

Comments (2)

Re: EPACRIS 19 Jun 2022 - 10:57:00 AM

Hi STIVAT. Wattlebirds and lorikeets are nectar feeding birds. Not all native plants are rich sources of nectar but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthwhile attractive plants for other birds. Your native frangipanis should be good habitat for insect-eating birds. I think the reason you aren’t seeing these at the moment is probably more to do with the wattlebirds and lorikeets, which are notorously aggressive and tend to keep other birds away. If you want to attract a larger variety of birds you should also try some dense prickly shrubs for the little birds to hide in and local indigenous grevilleas with SMALL flowers and things like correas. I see no reason to get rid of the frangipanis if they are doing well.

Re: Re: EPACRIS 19 Jun 2022 - 11:30:00 AM

The other thing I forgot to mention is don’t give up too quickly. It can take time for birds to discover your trees, especially if you’re some distance from bushland. Good luck!

Tell our Plant Selector what you want & like and we'll search thousands of plant profiles for compatible matches