“Start with a young mulberry tree, if possible, for that fruit is the most attractive for birds of all kinds. And bees like to hover about mulberry blossoms, too, and get their nectar there. In my opinion, a mulberry tree is a necessity if one wants to keep birds and bees happy.
“Besides the mulberry tree—or three or four of them, if you can find them of a size easy to remove from the woods—take the elderberry bushes, the choke-cherry, dogwood trees, wild black cherry and other kinds that not only blossom profusely but bear fruit that the birds like.
“All these trees and shrubs or bushes can be planted at intervals along that garden strip by the fence. Then, in between those high bushes and trees, you can plant the geraniums. The low border flowers can run all along without a break and the vines at the back where the old fence is, can also cover that, but your gay geraniums will look all the gayer and prettier for having the green bushes and trees break the monotonous streak of color.”
“That’s splendid advice, Mrs. Tompkins, and I only hope we can find such trees and bushes.”
“That is the easiest part of the work, Norma, because the woodland down by the stream, is full of just such berry bushes and fruit trees. That is one reason the woods, there, is so full of wild song birds. And they will move up nearer the house if they find plenty of food and good lodgings.”
“Dear me! I wish to goodness we had been on the farm in time to do all this work before the birds came from the South!” sighed Norma.
“It will be ready for them next year, at least. Even if these bushes and trees die off, you can easily replace them with others in the late fall or early spring. To group them judiciously and know where they belong, is an important work that can be done now while they are in full leaf and will show how they look.”
“It seems a pity to transplant the poor things just to show us how they look, and then have them die,” remarked Norma.
“If the soil about the roots is carefully dug and packed on the outside with straw or strips of burlap to keep it from falling off, there is no reason why the bushes and trees should fade or die. The main thing to do is to keep their native soil about the roots, and to disturb the roots as little as possible. This can be done by digging a wide enough circle about the trunk, and by having a large enough hole where it is to go in. I think it is a waste of money to buy fancy shrubs and decorative bushes, or trees, for the lawn or garden, because one can find any kind one needs right in the woods.”
“The reason I mentioned sun flowers along the fence-line, Mrs. Tompkins, I knew the birds loved to eat their seeds, and they grow rapidly in any soil without any attention, too.”