Native hedging will reveal your garden’s natural pecking order
You don’t need to install bird tables to attract wildlife. A few carefully chosen hedges and bushes will reap rewards, says our expert Agnes Stevenson
Apatch of ground at the top of the garden has just been sown with grass seed and it is acting like a buffet for all the neighbourhood birds. The partridges, which live in the field behind us, have turned up to feast on it, along with some of the pheasants from the nearby shoot.
At this time of year the pheasants are young and skinny but at this rate they are going to fatten up quickly.
The pheasants cause so much damage with their sharp claws and plant-shredding beaks that we’ve given up hanging out bird feeders as these were attracting so many of them. And now there’s a suggestion that hanging up suet balls and tubes filled with peanuts might be causing dominant bird species numbers to flourish at the expense of their less sturdy cousins.
One way to support many different kinds of birds without resorting to a bird table is by growing the right sort of plants. And, according to some wildlife experts, the single most important feature is a hedge.
Hedges are nature’s equivalent of a tenement. Between root and tip all kinds of different creatures can happily co-exist. And if you plant a native hedge then the berries will provide food on-tap.
The best sorts of hedges are made up of a mixture of different plants, such as hawthorn, dog rose, blackthorn and holly and if you encourage ivy and honeysuckle to thread through them then you’ll be adding important ingredients.
We have a mixture of hedges around the garden and the blackberries that appear on the laurel hedge in autumn are eaten by many different kinds of birds. The newly-planted pyracanthas are also berrying-up and these should attract blackbirds once other sources of food dry up.
But it’s not just berries that
can help birds to survive the winter; mahonia flowers are a favourite with sparrows, who strips the stalks like sweetcorn. And if they happen to leave any untouched, the berries that form will be polished off by thrushes.
If you grow cotoneaster you might be lucky to attract waxwings.these winter visitors mostly stick to the east coast but occasionally venture west in search of food. And they are so attractive it is easy to forgive them when they strip an entire tree of berries in a matter of hours.
The best way to attract lots of birds to the garden is to plant as many different berrying shrubs as possible. So this and you’ll also create a garden that looks bejewelled. From hips and haws to the violet berries of Callicarpa bodinieri, you can use these juicy fruits to fill your garden with late season colour.
Add a couple of crab apple trees then you should have outdoor baubles right through until Christmas. And hopefully there should be enough for you and for the birds.