Mid-Atlantic Fall Plant Swap

Sally, that sounds to me like an article title!

That is very interesting, I've never had any birds trouble my Autumn Joy Sedum.. hmmm...

Yes, I've read about birds eating Autumn Joy sedum, and I witnessed a bird (finch? sparrow?) pecking at my sedum sieboldii for several minutes. When I went out to check later, I saw that the leaves were shredded from all that pecking.

It's funny we didn't have any, or very few honey bees all summer till the sedums got going. They were covered with them. So much for any early spraying. I will not spray till after frost now. I so glad ya'll enjoyed yourselves and our gardens. We really enjoy doing them, most of the time. I will admit once in a while it's a chore, usually when we get down to crunch time before a party or garden visit. That's our fault in wanting to look our best. We've been playing catch-up all season with all our travel, health problems, and construction.

My Autumn Sedums (2) are huge--and at that very pretty state when the color
just starts peeking though. The blooms look like frosted, pink snowballs...

Never seen a bird pecking at it--and I have a lot of birds around here---
mostly Sparrows nowadays. By the hundreds....

Now and then i catch a glimpse of Goldfinches feeding on the Rudbeckia
seed heads by my front door.
Of course--as soon as I see them--they see me and disappear.

This cool weather, while nice, seems so out of character for September
....
Put a blanket on my bed tonight...I bet you--in a few days--we will be back in the
sweltering heat again.
Gita

I wondered why my Sedums (before I got rid of them) looked raggedy like that. The verdict seems to be that birds are after the water in the leaves: http://www.newgarden.com/notes/bird-damage-to-sedums-in-summer

Apparently they will peck at them even if they have a source of water nearby.

This message was edited Sep 18, 2014 6:40 AM

For years the birds ignored my Sedums. Then out of the blue they "discovered" them. Now there doesn't seem to be any turning back.