Best Fast Growing Shrubs for a Wildlife Garden
Looking to attract animals to your yard through your landscaping and wildlife gardens? Want to help restore natural habitats? If you’re a nature lover, then you’ll love finding beautiful landscape accents that also attract wildlife like bees, butterflies, and birds. Not only can carefully-selected flowering shrubs offer food for wildlife like bees and butterflies, but some wildlife plants also offer great shelter and nesting materials for birds.These are the best garden shrubs for wildlife.
Most Popular Shrubs & Hedges
Because fast growing shrubs for wildlife can flower at different times, you’ll be able to enjoy a diverse selection of wildlife right at your own home. Do try to select bushes that flower into winter so that the wildlife you attract to your yard will have a year-round source of food.
Whether you are planting trees or shrubs, be sure to check your zone, plan out your planting site (is it full sun or part shade?), test the soil, and schedule planting times accordingly. Most plants prefer to be planted in early spring so they have the whole growing season to establish their roots.
Top Picks for Wildlife Plants:
…then the berries. 
First the flowers… Indian Hawthorn: A beautiful white, sometimes light pink flowering bush, the Indian Hawthorn offers both dense foliage and gorgeous dark bluish-black berries that last through the winter. As such, this bush attracts various types of wildlife that eat the dark blue berries and use the dense dark-green foliage for shelter.
Dainty white flowers cluster on the sweet viburnum bush Sweet Viburnum: Low-maintenance with stunning bright green leaves, this fragrant beauty produces red berries that birds love to feast on (unless you live in Florida, where the berry production is low).Most varieties of Viburnums are good for attracting wildlife to your yard, so check out our full selection of Viburnums here.
Dwarf Burford holly berries last through the winter Dwarf Buford Holly: This is another red-berry shrub that is low maintenance but beautiful with its rich green foliage and bright red fruit. While white flowers bloom in the spring, the berries blossom in fall and last through late winter — making this bush a perfect food source for birds. Like Viburnums, most types of Holly are great for attracting wildlife to your yard.See what other types of Holly we offer.
Pollinators love this flower Bridal Wreath Spirea: As beautiful and breathtaking as a bride, think cascades of gorgeous flowers when you consider the Bridal Wreath. With arching branches that perfectly showcase the autumn-colored flowers, butterflies and bees will love to visit the Bridal Wreath in your landscape.
Dwarf Burford holly berries last through the winter Rose Creek Abelia: Perhaps one of the best choices for attracting diverse wildlife to your yard, this dwarf shrub offers lustrous leaves and showy white flowers that are disease resistant and long blooming. Hummingbirds and butterflies are frequent visitors to the Rose Creek Abelia thanks to its sweet nectar.
The hybrid American Chestnut tree is the #1 nut tree in the USA for attracting wildlife into your landscape. It produces high quality nuts, edible for both humans and animals, that are large and sweet. Many hunters use this Chesnut variety to attract deer into their land.
If you’re looking for more landscaping information and want to talk with us more about how to attract wildlife to your yard with native shrubs, we’d love to chat with you! Please contact us through our comments below.