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Best no-grow bird seed
Feed the birds without spilled seed germinating and becoming weeds in your garden with these no-grow bird seeds.
Feeding garden birds is an enjoyable pastime for many, but one drawback can be that spilled bird seed begins to grow and create a blanket of weeds below your feeder.
To combat this, many companies now supply seed mixes labelled as ‘no grow’ or ‘no mess’. These contain oats and sometimes suet pellets along with various seeds, such as sunflower and maize, that have been kibbled – cracked, chopped or ground – or heat treated to inhibit germination.
Find out if these treatments actually work in our results table below.
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Best no-grow bird seed
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| Product name | Overall score | Germination four days after sowing | Germination 10 days after sowing | % tray coverage | Outside germination |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CJ Wildlife Hi-Energy No Mess | |||||
| Garden Wildlife Direct Premium No Grow No Waste No Husk Wild Bird Seed Mix | |||||
| Gardman No Grow Seed Mix | |||||
| Happy Beaks No Husk No Grow No Waste Wild Bird Seed Mix | |||||
| Little Peckers No Grow Wild Bird Mix | |||||
| Notcutts Gourmet High Energy No Grow No Mess | |||||
| Peckish No Grow Seed Mix |
★ = 80-100% germination; ★★ = 60-80% germination; ★★★ = 40-60% germination; ★★★★ = 20-40% germination; ★★★★★ = 0-20% germination. Rating ignores price and is based on: germination after four days 20%; germination after 10 days 20%; tray coverage 20%; outside germination 40%.
Tips for feeding birds
Timing
The most important time to feed garden birds is winter and early spring. However, offering food all year round is even more beneficial, especially as birds will get used to regular feeding and visit your garden accordingly.
Little and often
The best way to avoid spilled seed making a mess on the ground – whether it grows or not – is to feed the birds little and often, rather than putting out lots of food at once. Also tidy up spilled food regularly.
Fat balls
Try using fat balls instead of loose seed mixes. These are usually made from a mixture of suet and various seeds, and are popular with blue tits, great tits, robins and long-tailed tits.
Variety
Put out a range of foods to attract a wider variety of species – along with seeds and nuts try mealworms, which are favoured by robins, blue tits and pied wagtails.You can buy mealworms fresh or dried. Meaty tinned dog or cat food can be used as a substitute for earthworms during dry summers – blackbirds will take it and even feed it to their chicks. Be warned, though: this will also attract larger birds such as magpies and gulls.
Inexpensive
Feeding the birds doesn’t have to be expensive. A range of kitchen scraps are suitable for putting on the bird table. Small amounts of crumbled, moistened bread, leftover baked or mashed potato and pastry scraps are all welcome snacks. Grated cheese is popular with robins, wrens, thrushes and dunnocks, while robins, thrushes, tits, blackbirds and starlings all enjoy dried fruits (soak them first during spring and summer) and bruised or partly rotten apples, pears, plums and other stone fruit.
Bird safety
Peanuts and fat balls are often sold in mesh bags, which birds can become trapped in. Always transfer the food to a wire cage feeder.
Squirrel-proof
Stop squirrels from joining the feast with a Best Buy squirrel-roof bird feeder.
Position
Position bird tables and feeders in a spot that makes it difficult for cats to reach, but close to a leafy bush or tree that birds can use as cover.
Clean
Wash and disinfect your feeders, bird tables and bird bath regularly to reduce the risk of disease.
Why Which? no-grow bird seed reviews are better
Which? is independent and doesn't accept advertising or freebies, so you can trust our reviews to give you the full, honest and impartial truth about a product.
We tested eight well-known brands, both on seed trays in the greenhouse and outdoors.
Each mix was sown in a seed tray of best compost and kept in the greenhouse.
We also sowed each mix on the ground outside in a bed protected by a fruit cage.
- We recorded germination in the greenhouse four days and 10 days after sowing.
- We recorded germination after 10 days on the seeds placed outside.
- Any seed that germinated was allowed to grow on so we could see whether the resulting plants were invasive or could be problematic.
We also contacted the manufacturers to find out the exact ingredients of each seed blend, since we noticed that some contained a greater variety of seeds than was listed on the packaging.
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