Make a Birdbath Garden
A birdbath garden can welcome the beauty of nature from near and far. One birdbath planter idea includes creating a birdbath garden, overflowing with blooming plants. In addition to blooming plants, you can fill a birdbath with colorful foliage plants like coleus, sweet potato vine and dusty miller. Even better, create a bird bath fairy garden. Use these birdbath garden ideas to get started.
A Unique Garden Design
With their classic good looks, birdbaths add form and function to your garden. You'll find birdbaths in a wide variety of designs and made from various materials. Concrete, ceramic and metal are common, but you'll also see decorative birdbaths in materials like glass, stone and marble.
In addition to what you plant in a birdbath, it's a good idea to think about the landscaping around bird bath. By planting around your decorative garden birdbath, you pull your landscaping design scheme together. For instance, if you add plants that attract hummingbirds to your birdbath planter, plant those same plants around the base of the garden birdbath.
Make a Birdbath Fairy Garden
These whimsical gardens feature miniature plants and fairy, elf, and animal figurines. When creating a birdbath fairy garden, choose dwarf plants that grow slowly. This will ensure that the plants won't grow big enough to tower over your fairies and their friends.
Create a story with fairy garden figurines. For instance, position a fairy in front of her dog, as if they're having a secret chat. Hang a little swing from a plant in your birdbath fairy garden. Place a little elf or tiny fairy on the swing. This creates action in the garden when the swing moves with the wind.
Add Flowers to Your Birdbath
A birdbath with flowers is a welcome and delightful sight in the garden. When choosing birdbath flowers, ensure that the plants grow well together and require the same light conditions. Also be mindful of flower color. Choose either one, two or three hues. Too many flower colors in a garden birdbath can be overwhelming to the eye.
When creating a garden birdbath with flowers, think about the birds by including plants that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Not only are hummingbirds and butterflies pollinators for the garden, but they're a beautiful delight to see.
Here are a few easy-to-grow choices of plants that attract hummingbirds and butterflies:
As its name suggests, this plant attracts bees. It also lures plenty of hummingbirds and butterflies, which enjoy sipping nectar from the plant's red, white or pink blooms. The bushy plant has minty-smelling leaves.
Pollinators love this plant's vivid red, tubular flowers, which contain sweet nectar. Cardinal flower will beautifully drape over the edge of a garden bird bath.
With bell-shaped flowers in red, purple, pink and white, penstemon makes quite a sight in a bird bath planter. Penstemon tends to stand erect, which means the blooms can be seen from a distance.
This popular annual comes in many colors, from striking deep purple to pastels like pink. You can even plant white petunias, which will glow at night in your garden birdbath.
Other Uses for Birdbaths
Once you begin having fun with birdbath gardens, you're likely to have more ideas for decorative birdbaths. You may find, for instance, that instead of planting flowers, you want to grow a succulent and cactus birdbath planter. In that case, use a terra-cotta birdbath, as they tend to offer plants dry conditions, like desert gardens require.
You may also find that you'd like to use birdbaths to create patio fountains, which is made possible by adding a water pump to the birdbath. The pump will circulate the water, which birds prefer for bathing and drinking. If you do create a patio fountain, ensure that the planter is securely attached to a birdbath stand.
