planting with wildlife in mind

@Ditherer surprised at the gorse: perhaps you should chat with @hailbopp who was saying how difficult it was to kill. See last few posts here Dividing Agapanthus

 

Nigel,
I have no idea about ph levels and the like but the soil is certainly not dry.
And since, it would seem, that gorse does well in drought conditions, well ....
Also, I'm keen to get that piece of land covered with something, don't want plants that need time to mature.
Just going explore the options through the winter months and, hopefully, formulate some sort of plan for the spring.

 

True wild sloes will sucker and make a thicket eventually, and have truly monsterous thorns. Hawthorn too. But neither had fruits I would enjoy nibbling. There are raspberries and blackberries that only grow a meter high, some raspbs that grow only 50cm even. Im sure those spread pretty quick, but they are also more expensive it seems than the tall types.

Sea buckthorn suckers a little bit but also has thorns, the fruit is more palatable than sloes and haws. You need male and female though, seedling hedging is best bet for that.

Teasel, hogweed, artichoke/cardoon, bur dock all work as thorny plants that die back in winter if you are only interested in feeding wildlife with seeds. hogweed seeds have a really wierd interesting flavour, burdock and artichoke seeds are edible for us i believe

 

I would consider pyracantha. It is thorny, has flowers in spring and berries in the autumn. It can be clipped into a dense hedge of any desired width and is very thorny. It grows quickly once established and is a very tough plant.
The added benefit is it grows easily from cuttings or layering, so you can increase the amount you have very quickly.
If planting for the birds I would go for a red berried variety, as they like those the best but if you want a more ornamental hedge, you could mix orange and yellow varieties in. You should be able to pick up bare root plants quite cheaply around now.


The local gorse always looks a bit battered this time of year and the insides always have a thicket of browning leaves inside. The outside will grow green again in spring.

 

Pyracantha seems the obvious choice - evergreen, thorny, flowers with nectar and pollen in spring, berries in autumn for th ebirds and shelter for small birds and mammals all year. It's usually cheap, especially if you buy single stem whips in autumn, and makes a very good hedge or wall shrub.

Get the soil prep right and it'll be fine @Ditherer
How to grow pyracantha / RHS Gardening

 

PS woody plants do best planted in autumn as their roots have time to develop before the spring rush of growth up top.

 

Qbelix,
I planted a couple of thorny bushes a few weeks ago, including a pyracantha, but they're a slow grow.

I'm leaning toward planting brambles and just letting them run across the garden, with maybe a planter or two in there just break it up a bit.

 

Brambles will run and sucker and self propagate like mad and become a nightmare and they're not attractive to anything in winter unless you have the white form rubus cockburnianus and, to be frank, I don't think you have the knowledge or experience to control them.

Planted properly in well prepared soil a single stem whip of pyracantha will grow strong and sturdy and be an asset.

No plant that grows a mile a minute will match it but will become a nightmare to you and your neighbours.

 

Yeah, can't argue with that.
Wouldn't mind filling it with thistles but I don't think soil will suit them.

 

Beware of thinking wildlife is only attracted by native weeds @Ditherer. I once had some agronomy scientists visit my garden in Belgium, many of whom only had weeds in their garden for wildlife and very unhappy neighbours who were not fans of dandelions and thistles.

They were astonished to see bees visiting clematis Red Ballon for nectar; 4 kinds of bees on one single head of sedum Autumn Joy; hoverflies on roses and clematis and echinops; ladybirds on roses and lots of native birds - warblers, tits including marsh tits which are rare there, finches, woodpeckers, redstarts, wagtails, swallows swooping over the pond and round the eaves and many more.

Wildlife needs sources of water, nectar, pollen, berries and shelter which will create a food chain from soil microbes and worms to slugs and aphids and the frogs, beetles, hedgehogs and birds that eat them. You can make a garden attractive to all sorts of creatures as well as to the human eye and it doesn't need to be high maintenance or expensive, just a good mix of heights, colours and textures.

 

Obelix,
At my age, I really can't be bothered with any sort of pond.
Neighbours ? I live on a sink-estate, I shall say no more.
Am currently looking at a fast growing berberis.

 

Water is just as important as food for wildlife. It doesn't even have to be a pond - a simple tray/shallow container, or a birdbath, which can be on the ground.
I think you're approaching all of this in completely the wrong way, and also being blinkered with what you intend planting, or have planted. It doesn't have to be so complicated to attract wildlife of any kind.

 

I remember reading something that found gardens with a wide range of cultivated plants provided food for insects for a lot longer through the year than just native weeds. So I'd argue an ordinary garden with everything from spring bulbs to autumn berries and dead grasses or verbena to provide seeds is the best for wildlife!

 

The trick with plants is a little patience. I know it can be hard some times but woody plants take a couple of years to root down and become settled before they romp away with growth. Any hedging type plant, will take at least 3 years to really get going. Young plants often catch up and out pace larger specimens because they adapt better.
With pyracantha you could get anywhere from 2-3ft growth a year or in a good year, more, once it's established. Berberis is probably slightly less depending on variety but it's a real pain to prune because it's so vicious.

 

I am trusting, well, hoping, that if I keep on top of the berberis, assuming that it actually takes route and doesn't die on me, it might be manageable.
May well put a few pyracanthas in next year, maybe squeeze in a planter or two with flowering plants, and perhaps, even a bird-bath.
We have a bird-bath out the back, used to love watching the birds bathing in it, but that doesn't happen now, small birds seem to be coming increasingly scarce.
The priority right now is cat-unfriendly.