THE BEST BERRIES TO HELP FEED THE BIRDS IN YOUR GARDEN
BERRIES give birds vital nutrition through the cooler months and add colour to your plot, explains HANNAH STEPHENSON, and there are so many to choose from.
There’s the spiky Pyracantha ‘Orange Glow’ and Cotoneaster ‘Cornubia’ or the unusual, vivid purple berries of Callicarpa bodinieri ‘Profusion’.
“At this time of year birds will be fetching their babies out, and they need to know how to find their own food,” says ornithologist and conservationist Dan Rouse, author of How To Attract Birds To Your Garden (DK, £16.99).
“Berries provide a natural food source, particularly during the cooler months when we won’t have the caterpillars, grubs s or larvae,” she adds.
For some species, such as song and mistle thrushes, blackbirds, redwings or fieldfares, berries are the main source of food through winter, notes the RSPB.
PLANT NATIVE SPECIES
CONSIDER native species such as holly, elder, honeysuckle, suckle or ivy, or shrubs such as cotoneaster, pyracantha and berberis, to attract a wide range of birds. These will also provide food for a range of insects and
other animals – mice, hedgehogs, badgers, squirrels, and even foxes will happily munch on berries. WHICH BERRIES LAST LONGEST? “HOLLY, hawthorn and blackthorn berries are very longlasting. They come out throughout the winter and feed migratory birds such as redwing and fieldfares, as well as birds which come into your gardens from their breeding grounds such as goldfinches and siskins,” says Dan.
“People will be seeing more of them in their garden now.”
WHAT ABOUT POLLINATION?
BE aware that most berrying shrubs need a female and a male specimen planted near each other for pollination to take place and generate berries. The sex of the plant should be listed on the label when you buy it.
However, if you only have room for one berrying plant, there are some self-fertile ones that don’t require a pollinating partner. Good choices include Gaultheria mucronata ‘Bell’s Seedling’, which produces dark red berries, Skimmia japonica ‘Reevesiana’ and Ilex aquifolium ‘J.C. van Tol’ (a spineless green holly).
For more information visit rspb.org.uk