The Avant-Garden Shop: Your Garden & Bird Store

bird watching

Garden Gate: Episode 209 – Plants to attract birds to your garden

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Often times our customers will wonder why they aren’t getting birds to their feeders. On this episode I show you some different trees, shrubs and perennials that you can add to your garden to attract a wider variety of birds. Birds are not attracted to yards with only grass. They find food in trees, shrubs … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 208 – Building a squirrel proof bird feeding station (Jan 29, 2020)

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Setting up a squirrel proof bird feeding station can be done! You just need to be smarter than the squirrels! And I think you are! Squirrels can climb poles, clothes lines, shepherds hooks and they can jump up 4-5′. Squirrels can also launch themselves 10-12′ from deck rails, gazebos, your roof, trees, clothes lines etc. … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 202 – Compare the quality (Nov. 6th, 2020)

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Customers often talk about the price of bird food when they should be considering the QUALITY! On this episode I dissect a bag of box store bird food. Even I was shocked at how poor the quality was. Birds don’t eat wheat or milo which is in high quantities in box store mixes. Even the … Read more

All that Glitters IS Gold

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American Goldfinches are the latest-breeding songbird species in this area. They molt their feathers a second time in the summer, which is unusual for most bird species and leads to increasingly bright colours as the season progresses. Their song is a cheerful musical babbling, and their flight call – po-ta-to chip! po-ta-to chip! – is … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 188-Feeding the birds during stressful times (April 10 2020)

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Watching the birds is a very relaxing and stress reducing hobby. We have been overwhelmed at this time with requests to purchase our bird food and bird feeders so have implemented a sidewalk pick up program, trunk drop and also deliveries. Hours of operation have expanded during the pandemic crisis to Tuesday to Saturday from … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 176 – Repairing bird feeders (Oct. 25th, 2019)

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At The Avant-Garden Shop we carry a wide variety of bird feeders but the most popular and best quality are those from Brome, Droll Yankees and Aspects. These feeders are made from high quality materials that last a lifetime. The tubes are made from a special UV protected plastic that doesn’t yellow or crack. The … Read more

Garden Tips: Supporting Birds in the Winter

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Certain needs must be met to for any living creature to survive: food, water, and shelter from inclement weather and predators. These elements work together to form a critter’s habitat. No matter how ideal a habitat may appear to be in one or more of these areas, it will not be used by wildlife if even … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 128 – Photographing birds with guest Rodney Fuentes

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CHEX TV airdate: Friday Nov. 10th, 2017 Garden Gate airs bi-weekly on CHEX TV. Fridays at 8am and 5pm, and the following Monday at 12:30pm Local photographer and filmmaker Rodney Fuentes joins me on this episode with a few tips on photographing birds. You need a good SLR camera but nothing extremely complicated or expensive … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 55 – New Feeders

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caged-squirrel-B Click link to watch this episode. So you have a new feeder! ?Yay! ?You filled it up with bird food. Hung it in a tree. ?It looks good. ?You can see it from the kitchen window and are ready to enjoy those little chirpers. Then you waited. No birds. Days go by. Still no birds. ?What’s going on you say? ?It’s frustrating, but there are often good reasons why you don’t see any birds. On this episode of The Garden Gate on CHEX TV I give some quick tips about why you may not be seeing birds and things you can do to hopefully get them to enjoy your new bird feeder. ?I hope you’ll join me!

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