Sunflower seeds are a favorite food of songbirds

We feed birds all summer long, and the grass and flowers near the feeder tend to look bad. The grass dies due to the broken seeds that fall and an ugly green leafy weed grows instead. Is there any type of flower that could be planted under the feeder that would choke out the weed and not be affected by the bird seed?

— Beth Appleton, Barrington

You did not mention the type of seeds you are using in the feeder. Sunflower seeds are a favorite food of songbirds and present in many commercial seed mixes. Sunflower seed hulls contain a toxin that inhibits growth in some plants so the hulls that fall to the ground under the feeder can impact the plants growing there. This process is called allelopathy, which refers to the release of chemicals by one plant that has an effect on another plant. These chemicals can be given off by different parts of the plant or released by natural decomposition. Allelopathy is a survival mechanism that allows certain plants to compete with and sometimes destroy nearby plants by inhibiting seed sprouting, root development or nutrient uptake. Black walnut is another example of a plant that will inhibit the growth of many plants growing near it.

Try using a better quality bird seed in your feeder if you have been using a seed mix that has filler such as oats, barley or red millet that birds chose not to eat and ended up on the ground and germinating. Try a “no mess” blend in which seeds do not have shells and are more in pieces to reduce waste. There are seed mixtures that do not contain whole sunflower seeds or use hull-less sunflower seed to eliminate the toxin problem. No matter which seed mix you use, there will likely be some seeds that drop to the ground and germinate, requiring occasional weeding to control. Also, it is a good idea to periodically clean up the old seed and hulls that collect on the ground. Keeping a patch of open ground under the feeder will benefit ground-feeding birds such as doves. Some birds will use the bare ground to take a dust bath to maintain their feathers.

How does a sunflower seed dehuller machine work?

Our Julite Machinery provides you a well dehulling machine plant line.