Planting wildflowers is one of the most effective ways to create a bird friendly garden while increasing biodiversity. Wildflowers not only bring a splash of colour but also provide important resources for birds throughout the year. They attract a wide range of pollinators, including bees, butterflies, and hoverflies, which in turn support insect-eating birds. Many wildflowers also serve as larval food plants for caterpillars, an essential food source for chicks during the breeding season.
As well as providing food, wildflowers offer birds shelter. Dense clusters of wildflowers can provide birds with valuable shelter and hiding spots from predators throughout the year. During autumn and winter, the dried seed heads and tall stems left standing become a source of food and cover. Many wildflowers self-seed naturally, ensuring a steady supply of seeds into autumn, which benefits seed-eating birds during the colder months.
Honesty is an annual or biennial plant, with toothed, heart-shaped leaves and large clusters of pink, purple, or white four-petalled flowers that bloom in late spring and early summer. In autumn, it produces distinctive, translucent oval seed pods with a silvery sheen. Honesty grows best in fertile, moist and well-drained soil in partial shade.
Beyond its ornamental value, honesty supports a variety of wildlife by providing nectar for pollinators and serving as a caterpillar food plant for the orange-tip butterfly. During the winter months, its seeds are enjoyed by finches.
The cornflower is a tall annual with lance-shaped leaves. Like other members of the daisy family, its bright blue flowers are composite heads made up of small florets, that bloom from May to July. In cornflowers, the outer florets are star-shaped, while smaller, more purplish florets form the centre.
These bird-friendly blooms thrive in poor soil, making them an excellent choice for gardeners with less-than-ideal conditions. Goldfinches and other small birds will enjoy feeding on the seeds, and any seeds they drop will naturally produce a new crop the following year.
Also known as Eggs and Bacon, bird’s foot trefoil is a perennial member of the pea family with downy leaves. From late spring to early autumn, it produces clusters of yellow, slipper-shaped flowers that emerge from red-tinged buds. These are followed by long, thin seed pods that resemble bird’s feet or claws, which is how it gets its common name. It thrives in grassy areas with sun and well-drained soil.
Bird’s foot trefoil is a larval food plant for the common blue, green hairstreak, and dingy skipper butterflies. It is also an important nectar source, benefiting pollinators such as bees and butterflies.
Common teasel is a branched, upright biennial that can grow up to three metres tall. In its first year, it forms a bright green rosette of foliage, followed by flowering stems in its second year. The stems are covered in thorns, and the cone-shaped flowerhead consists of tiny purple blooms arranged in rings, which appear from mid-summer. After flowering, the heads turn brown and remain intact throughout the winter. This robust plant thrives in a variety of sites and soils, including moist and heavy soils, and can grow in both sun and partial shade.
Teasels are very popular with wildlife. The flowers attract bees, butterflies, and other insects, while the abundant seeds are a favourite for seed-eating birds, especially goldfinches. The leaves and structure of the plant funnel and hold rainwater for up to several days, providing a valuable micro-supply of water for wildlife.
A member of the borage family, viper’s bugloss is a tall, bushy, erect perennial with rosettes of lance-shaped, spiky leaves on a spotted stem. In early summer, it produces dense, cylindrical spikes of bell-shaped violet-blue or pink flowers. It thrives in well-drained soil but can tolerate a variety of soil types, including sandy, loamy, and rocky soils, and tolerates drought.
Viper’s bugloss is an excellent plant for pollinators, attracting mason bees, bumblebees, honeybees, and butterflies such as the large skipper and painted lady. Its flowers are rich in nectar, and unlike many other plants, they continue to produce nectar throughout the day.
The common poppy, also known as the field poppy, is a tall, upright annual with downy, light green leaves and stems covered in coarse hairs. It flowers from May to September, producing bright scarlet, saucer-shaped flowers with four overlapping petals, sometimes marked with a black spot at the base. Each plant can produce up to 400 flowers in a warm season, though each flower lasts only a single day. It thrives in full sun and well-drained soil, tolerating drier, poorer soils, and self-seeds readily.
Poppies attract a variety of pollinators, including solitary bees and hoverflies. In autumn, small seed-eating birds, such as dunnocks and sparrows, will enjoy the seeds.
Sheep’s sorrel, also known as red sorrel, is a member of the buckwheat family and can be distinguished from common sorrel by its shorter height. It is a small, tufted perennial that grows from a rosette of green, arrow-shaped leaves. Its slender, reddish upright stems can reach up to 50 cm tall. From March to November, male plants produce loose clusters of yellowish-green flowers, while female plants produce reddish flowers, followed by rusty-brown fruit. It thrives in sun or light shade, in most types of soil, and will readily self-seed and spread quickly if not controlled.
Sheep’s sorrel is a valuable plant for wildlife, attracting beetles, bugs, flies, moths, and butterflies, including the caterpillars of the small copper butterfly. Its seeds are also enjoyed by ground-feeding birds such as chaffinches and thrushes.
Common knapweed, also known as black knapweed, is a tall, branching perennial that resembles a thistle but is not prickly. It has deeply divided oblong leaves and rounded pink-purple flower heads made up of many tiny florets. These are surrounded by a crown of long, ragged, black bracts and grow on stems reaching about a metre in height. It thrives in a wide range of soils, in full sun or partial shade, and tolerates cold, exposed conditions.
It’s a favourite of numerous butterflies, including common blues, marbled whites, and meadow browns, as well as bees and moths. Its seed heads are also highly attractive to goldfinches and other seed-eating birds.
