When it comes to planting in your garden to create habitat and food for native birds, many of us think no further than the great native plant trinity of Grevilleas, Banksias and Bottlebrushes which is great if you are a rambunctious, cheeky (some may say aggressive) Honey eater, a group of birds that contains great diversity in Australia. However, on the coast and hinterland of the Sunshine Coast we live in an incredibly biodiverse area, with rainforests and other plant communities containing lots of fruiting plants, whose beauty and bounty make them valuable additions to your garden and a great source of food for a wide range of our fine, feathered friends.
For the benefit of gardeners let’s steer clear of trees for now and see what we can list in the smaller shrubs and vines, that grow on both coast and hinterland and also provide fruit for the birds.
Easy to grow and nice and low are the Midyim’s (Austromyrtus spp.) small spreading shrubs to 1 metre, with delicate weeping foliage and tasty little fruit that you can enjoy too. Snake Vine (Hibbertia scandens) is a very adaptable climber or groundcover with bright yellow flowers and orange fruit. Orange Box Thorn (Pittosporum multiflorum) is a prickly but glossy shrub to 1.5 metres, perfect also for smaller birds to hide from Noisy Myna’s or the local Moggies. Blue Tongue (Melastoma malabathricum) is a small native relative of Tibouchina’s with the added benefit of a tasty fruit, which is so named for when you eat a few fruit your mouth is stained blue/purple! Breynia (Breynia oblongifolia) is an open shrub with feathery foliage and small fruit red turning black when ripe, highly sought after by birds. Last but not least is Scrambling Lily (Geitonoplesium cymosum) a small vine, with beautiful white flowers and black fruit. Time to wrap it up (as we could fill the paper with our great local fruit bearing plants) and do a rain dance, as when I write this, we certainly need some!
