A couple weeks ago I began noticing that tutti frutti stems were being snapped. I then saw some house sparrows landing on the stems searching for seeds, so it seems they are the culprits. Now, every day I'm finding a bunch of broken stems... tutti frutti(plant now looks terrible), coral nymph(~15 stems in last two days), mulberry jam(have lost quite a few good bloom spikes), and subrotunda. Has anyone else experienced this? I was already fed up with hosps mobbing my seed feeders(even seeds they aren't supposed to like much), but if they are going to destroy my good hummer plants, too, I'll have to seriously consider trapping and killing them.

Dan
Zone 5
East-central Iowa

Those things are a real pest here. Me Dad used to have purple martin houses and the sparrows would take them over if he didnt keep them cleaned out.





Mike
Austin Texas
Heat Zone- Hot

I have plenty of hosps here but it is the gold finches that are keeping me busy. They are going after the seed mostly from the salvias so I do have quite a few broken stems but since I don't have any hummers now I am not getting too upset.

Penny
NY
USDA hardiness zone 6
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

House Sparrows haven't hurt my garden very much but they do monopolize my bird feeders... as you say, even eating seed they aren't supposed to like. "My" House Sparrows have figured out how to eat from both my thistle feeder and my peanut feeder. They definitely intimidate my Goldfinches and House Finches. Cardinals seem big enough to handle them, one on one, but they tend to mob the feeders at times and then only the Grackles or a visit hawk can drive them away.

The problem is several of my idiot neighbors "decorate" the sides of their houses with multiple bird houses. These ornate houses are not designed for any particular species so the holes tend to be large and so we end up with sparrow colonies. As they fill up those houses, the House Sparrows then start harassing other birds when they can't even fit into their houses. I've had sparrows try to run off my wrens, when I put up special wren-sized houses with little holes that the sparrows can even enter!

They are a pain. The one good thing they seem to do, however, is fan into my garden in summer and eat bugs. I suspect they help me out by eating aphids on my honeysuckles too, so they are not all bad. I don't have the heart to kill them but I wouldn't mind if they went away!

Wilmington, Delaware
USDA zone 7a
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 32

The House sparrows usually congregate in my honeysuckle so like Ron I assume they are keeping the aphid population in check. I have had to remove my seed feeders though in late spring once things start to grow and green up as they were going back and forth from my neighbor across the road over to my house all day long wiping out both feeders.

Penny
NY
USDA hardiness zone 6
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Penny, if it was goldfinches doing it I wouldn't be too upset, but there are so few of them around this year I don't see how it could be them. That said, I've never actually seen a hosp on the coral nymph, mulberry jam, or subrotunda because they are not very viewable from the window, if at all. I don't know what other bird could be doing it, though.

Dan
Zone 5
East-central Iowa

Dan
I have actually only seen one or two pairs of goldfinches this year but they are doing a lot of damage and very quickly too. The swarms of hosps are usually on the ground under the salvias if they aren't in the honeysuckle. I think they are going after the seed that naturally falls out of the plants or that they goldfinches are dropping.

Penny
NY
USDA hardiness zone 6
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39