NEW ZEALAND PLANTS FOR BIRD COVER AND FOOD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND PLANTS FOR BIRD COVER AND FOOD.

By

B. C. Aston, F.N.Z.lnst.

New Zealand is a land of honey, song, and sweetness. Those like myself who live in beautiful Karon, near some hundreds of acres of forest, oven though sadly shorn of the best timber trees, enjoy the visit of many sweet singers drawn to the garden by food and shelter. A tui used to be 'a visitant as close to the city as Botanical Gardens road, when the bluegums were in flower, and one hopes for his return. One may not plant bluegums in the gardens to attract honey eaters, but there are a large number of berried and honey plants yielding much insect, sugary and fruity food beloved by birds, and in return for which they will allow □ close view of their active life and make a man’s home a melodious retreat.

Although Wellington is not so favoured, there are still towns where the tui may be heard and may be coaxed to visit the garden. New Zealand flax (Phormium), the Yellow Kowhai (Sophora), the Cabbage free (Cordyline), Kakabeak (Clianthus), the Pohutukawa and the Ratas (Metrosideros), will supply this honey-eater with food, and the poroporo (Soianurn aviculare) will provide him with dainty fruit. The tui is credited with fertilising the flowers of the Rhabdothamnus, but to do so he cannot alight but must extract the sugary sweets poised on the wing. The bell-bird as well as all the others love the Ngaio (Myoporum). Not only does this small tree provide a juicy Truit in season, but about its branches insect life abounds and it affords a pleasing shelter, no; too dark and not too exposed. To it comes the wax eye, the sweetest of minor singers, and from it the grey wabler, the greatest of small singers, will sing yon a clear and dainty ballad as you sit at ease on your verandah. The wax eye is a bird to be encouraged. He will, in small flocks, visit the cabbage plot and clean up the green fly. His song is pitched in a minor key, but when once detected will be listened for with the knowledge that you may enjoy a pleasure which most people with duller senses miss. These small birds revel in any native fruiting bush; Coprosmas, from the large taupata (C. Baueri), and Karamu (C. lucida and C. robusta) to the smallest, brightest, berried bushes. These may all be induced to fruit freely by grafting on each female bush a portion of the male plant. One cannot grow to maturity the many fruiting forest trees which birds love —the rimu, miro, totara, tawa, kahikatea; but there are a host of attractive plants which ornament a garden and provide fruit and honey for birds. Pimelea, nearly allied to the favourite daphne, is a good and quick-growing rock plant, there being many species producing fruit of different colours. The woody C’oprosmas already mentioned will supply every colour and shade of fruit, and the closely allied herbaceous Nertera will also brighten the rock garden with fruit.

Solanum aviculare (poroporo) is one of the most beautiful and easily grown plants for the garden with large blue flowers. The fruit is large, orange-coloured, and highly relished by birds Fuchsia procumbens, the climbing fuchsia, covers rock work with a mass of foliage, whence shine out large, red, succulent fruit. Tne tree fuchsia provides almost black fruit; both are eagerly eaten by birds. Gunnera and Rhagodia are also rock plants giving useful fruit of red or white, colour. A. climber which has the brightest of all fruit is the New Zealand Passion Flower (Passiflora tetrandra). This can be seen in its full glory at Wilton’s Bush. In fruit and leaf it is one of the most conspicuous and beautiful plants of the flora. Other shrubs which may be grown for their b&iuty and for bird food are the Myrtle (Myrtus Ralphii, M. bullata, M. pedunculate and M. obcordata). Lancewood (Pseudopariax), Ivy tree or Houhou (Nothopanax), Bullswool (Corokia), also a good hedge, plant in .Eastern Wellington coastal districts. The tree violets Hymenanthera, Melicytus (Mahoe), Karaka (Corynocarpus), Bush Lawyer (Rubus), and the handsome leaved tutu (Coriaria), of which there are three species. the smallest of which is the most delightful foliage plant of the country.—New Zealand Life."