Plants for the aviary

When we were improving a home for our friend Logos, an ancient cockatiel, I found that recommendations for safe and unsafe plants were not consistent and some were even directly contradictory. These below are considered safe by all the resources I checked. Two dangers: If you get your plants at a non-organic nursery, check carefully to make sure that they do not have pelleted fertilizer mixed into the dirt. This is usually a sign of a good quality plant, BUT the birds can eat this and it is poisonous to them. If you buy a plant with the pellets, take out the top inch of dirt and replace iwth plain potting soil. Also, leave nursery plants outside in the rain or hose them off for several days to remove sprays and insecticides. Asparagus croton Fig or ficus All the birds LOVED asparagus fern, especially the donkeytail "Meyerii" type, and ate it like a salad green. several weeks after we added all the greens, the parakeets began producing families of beautiful babies. Poisonous or toxic- if your birds fly free in the house, don't even keep them in the house.