10 Plants for a Beautiful, Bird-Friendly Garden this Winter

As we head into autumn and winter, food can become harder for garden birds to find. Many of the insects that birds feed on during the warmer months become much less plentiful.

Berries and fruits provide an important source of food during autumn and winter. Dense shrubs and trees also provide places for birds to shelter, roost and nest.

A garden that works for birds can also be a beautiful garden with the right plant choices in the right part of your garden.

As a garden designer, I’m always looking for ways to create gardens that are both beautiful and useful to wildlife. Here are some of my favourite plants for helping garden birds.

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Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus)

Guelder rose is a beautiful native Irish shrub which produces clusters of white flowers in spring, and bright red berries and attractive red leaves in autumn.

The berries are eaten by a range of birds, including thrushes and bullfinches. It is particularly useful for gardens with heavier or damp soil and will also tolerate partial shade.

Globe thistle (Echinops)

Globe thistle is a fantastic plant for a wildlife-friendly garden. Its striking spherical blue flowers are particularly attractive to bees and other pollinating insects during summer, providing a valuable source of nectar. It is a great choice for a sunny, well-drained spot.

The seed heads look attractive over winter and also provide some food to birds. That's why I always encourage my customers to wait until March to cut it back.

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

Hawthorn is one of the best all-round plants for an Irish garden and a particularly good choice if you want to support birds throughout the year.

Its dense, thorny growth provides excellent shelter and nesting habitat, while its white flowers in May and June attract insects. Later in the year, the flowers are followed by red berries, known as haws, which provide food for birds in autumn and winter.

You can grow hawthorn as a hedge or a small tree. Try collecting berries from a hawthorn hedge this autumn and grow your own!

Apple trees (Malus)

An apple tree can be a fantastic addition to a smaller garden, providing benefits for wildlife as well as giving you a crop of apples.

The blossom in spring attracts insects, while the tree itself provides habitat for insects and caterpillars, which in turn provide food for insect-eating birds.

I have an eating apple tree in my own garden and deliberately leave some of the apples on the tree rather than harvesting every last one. The leftover apples provide a useful food source for birds in autumn.

Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)

Rowan is a lovely tree for small and medium-sized garden. Its clusters of white flowers appear in spring. The Irish for Rowan is an acorthan, ‘the bright berried one’ and indeed it has gorgeous bright scarlet red berries which really pop in the autumn. These provide an important food source for berry-eating birds, including thrushes.

Elder (Sambucus nigra)

Elder is another native Irish plant that is particularly valuable for birds.

I often recommend ornamental cultivars of this plant for my customers. Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace', for example, has finely cut, almost black foliage and produces small, glossy dark berries which are a good source of food for birds.

Dog rose (Rosa canina)

Dog rose is another native Irish plant with plenty to offer wildlife.

Its pink flowers appear in summer and provide food for insects. Although the flowering period is relatively short, it is followed by bright red rose hips which remain on the plant for months and provide food for birds in autumn.

Dog rose is vigorous and can become quite large, so it isn't necessarily the best choice for a neat, compact urban garden. It is much more suited to a wilder or informal garden, where its natural growth habit can be appreciated.

I planted this around the perimeter of Raheny Community Garden and I’m training up the fencing.

Yew (Taxus baccata)

Yew is an excellent evergreen tree for providing year-round shelter and cover for birds. Its dense foliage can provide a particularly useful refuge in cold or exposed weather.

Female yew trees also produce the distinctive fleshy red arils that surround the seeds. These are eaten by birds, which can help to spread the seed.

Yew can make a useful hedge or be grown as a specimen tree, and it responds very well to pruning. If your aim is to retain berries, avoid repeatedly clipping it throughout the year; prune after the berries have been enjoyed rather than removing the developing growth unnecessarily.

Cotoneaster

Cotoneaster is an excellent shrub which offers the benefit of being attractive to birds later in the season, when other berries are gone. The berries persist on the branches into winter. Many cotoneasters can be trained as a tree, making it a great option for a small, evergreen tree in a suburban garden.

Pyracantha

This evergreen shrub can be grown against a wall. It has white flowers in spring and a stunning supply of beautiful bright orange berries in autumn, great for attracting a whole host of bird species

Planting trees and shrubs that produce berries and leaving some standing over winter, along with allowing a little leaf litter to accumulate and avoiding weedkillers can all help create a garden with more insects and other invertebrates for birds to feed on.

You don't need a huge garden to make a difference. Even a small suburban garden can include a wildlife-friendly tree, a berry-producing shrub and some insect-friendly planting!

Read more about Raheny Tidy Village Group's Biodiversity Plan here. 

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Written by Elaine Staveley,  The Plant Planner,  Planting Scheme Design and Consultancy