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Landscaping for warblers -- consider sourwoods.



Shantanu Phukan recently asked for Will Cook's plants-to-attract-birds list.
Well, warblers will be drifting into the Triangle any day now, and I've
noticed a pickup in foraging behavior by the summer residents such as
chickadees, titmice and vireos. So I've been keeping an eye on THE
consistent warbler-magnet is in my yard -- sourwood. It's a buggy tree the
year round, full of insect eggs, caterpillar tents and little green worms.
Except for chats and common yellowthroats, I've seen most of my
yard-warblers in sourwood, including a memorable male golden-winged in 1998.
The only problem I can imagine with sourwood is finding somewhere to buy it.
I don't seem to see it at nurseries, though it's common in the wild.

Here are my top 10 reasons to plant sourwoods:
10 Graceful form if grown in the open -- everything about it neat, sometimes
even elegant, including the leaves. A small grove would look great planted
around a rock outcrop or boulder pile.
9   Beautiful sprays of white flowers in early summer.
8   Small to medium size -- will never crush your house, car or you if it
falls in a hurricane.
7   Outstanding fall color -- and leaves begin turning very early (the first
1 or 2 leaves go red in July).
6   Very tough, non-splitting wood:  old-timers used sourwood as runners for
stone-boats, or sleds to convey rocks out of their fields. Dead sourwoods
are good fire wood.
5   Sourwood nectar is source of the most prized honey!
4   Roots are not intensely competitive with your garden shrubs and flowers,
in contrast to maple and dogwood. And shade is not dense. You could grow
this tree on the edge of your garden.
3   Butterflies are attracted to sourwood nectar.
2   Small animals find shelter in older, hollow sourwood trunks.
1   Birds are crazy about it -- hummingbirds pluck tiny spiders from it and
sit on its twigs, kinglets and chickadees pick through the spent flower
clusters in early winter; creepers and woodpeckers probe the bark, and
vireos and warblers act like a sourwood is a three-star restaurant holding
an all-you-can-eat night.

Desperately awaiting migration in Orange Co., NC
Ginger_Travis@unc.edu