Sunflower heads provide nutricious seeds for the birds.
Birds are entertaining to watch and many people feed them during the winter months when their food sources become scarce. People fill commercial feeders with seeds but nature provides natural feeders with dried sunflower heads. Birds flock in great numbers to pick the heads clean of their tasty soft shelled seeds. The most popular species of birds attracted to them are goldfinches, cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches and titmice. Decorate the dried sunflowers to hang outside your window and be rewarded with a flurry of activity while the birds are rewarded with a nutritious food.
Instructions
1. Chickadees enjoy sunflower seeds.
Cut the stems from your sunflowers with clippers so the stems are about 2-inches long. Harvest sunflowers in autumn when the seeds are large and the petals have dropped. Store them in a brown paper bag until you are ready to make your wreath.
2. Goldfinches feed from sunflower heads.
Cut a 12-inch piece of wire. Loop it around the stem of the sunflower and twist it tightly. Take the ends of the wire and loop them around the grapevine wreath twisting the ends tightly together. This holds the sunflower in place. Repeat this process with each sunflower, placing them side-by-side, until the front of your wreath is covered with sunflowers.
3. You will enjoy visits from cardinals if you provide sunflower heads.
Cut the stems of your coneflowers with clippers to about 6 inches in length. Harvest coneflowers in autumn after the petals have fallen off. The centers of the flowers are covered with brown seeds that the birds enjoy.
4. Insert the coneflowers between the sunflowers at random. Their stems are stiff and they can be pushed into the grapevine wreath to hold them in place. No wiring is necessary.
5. Make 12-inch loops of raffia and twist a 6-inch piece of wire around the ends of the loops to gather them together. Push the ends of the wire through the grapevine wreath and twist them together. Repeat making and attaching raffia loops until they completely circle around the outside edge of the wreath like petals on a flower. This is decorative but will also be useful as nesting material for the birds.
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