Best Trees & Shrubs to Attract Birds: Shelter, Food & Nectar Lists

Birdsong and color transform a yard. Planting the right woody plants provides the four pillars birds need: shelter, nesting, food, nectar. Native species are ideal — adapted, low-maintenance, ecologically aligned.

Shelter & Nesting

Alders, ash, azaleas, bayberries, berry thickets, birches, cedars, cotoneasters, cottonwoods, crab apples, dogwoods, elderberries, firs, hackberries, hawthorns, hemlocks, hollies, junipers, maples, mulberries, oaks, pines, poplars, rhododendrons, spruces, saguaros, sycamores, sumacs, viburnums, wax myrtles, woodbines.

Food (Berries, Seeds, Nuts)

Ash, barberry, beech, black gum, black haw, box elder, buckthorn, burning bush, buckeye, cedar, cherry laurel, chokeberry, coral bean, cotoneaster, crab apple, dogwood, Russian olive, elderberry, elm, fringe tree, hackberry, huckleberry, hawthorn, highbush cranberry, holly, juniper, leatherleaf mahonia, ligustrum, magnolia, mulberry, nandina, plum, pyracantha, oak, pine, rose, sassafras, serviceberry, spicebush, sumac, sweet gum, wax myrtle, winterberry, yaupon.

Nectar (Hummingbirds Too)

Abelia, azalea, butterfly bush, bottlebrush, coral tree, desert willow, fire spike, hibiscus, mimosa, tulip tree, weigela.

Not all thrive everywhere — take list to nursery for local suitability and mature size.

Source: Trees and Shrubs for Birds by Christine Tarski. Article by Kathleen Couch (Purple Leaf).