John Gilbert

This somewhat neglected garden was a ‘blank canvas’ when I had finished clearing the old and overgrown plant material as only one shrub proved worth keeping. These pictures were taken this week on the day new planting was finished – in a year’s time it will be full of growth and colour and the raw edges will have long been smoothed over.

The  brief was to create a garden that would attract birds and my design set about achieving this in a number of ways. The pond, which will be substantially planted next spring, is a key element in attracting wildlife while an informal lawn, untreated with pesticides, will also prove a food source for birds. The planting is dense and permanent and includes a high proportion of evergreen shrubs in order to provide safe gathering, roosting and nesting sites for a range of birds. This effect will increase in time as the plants mature and fill out.

The planting scheme provides flowers throughout most of the year. Flowers, of course, attract pollinating insects thus drawing birds to the garden. Many of the plants used are traditional or native, such as Crab apple, Hawthorn, Lavender, Acanthus and Rosemary and these attract a wider range of species than more exotic plantings. Many of the plants I have chosen produce seeds and berries – Clematis, Honeysuckle, Stipa, Miscanthus, Libertia and Sarcococca, for example – which will also draw the birds. I always advise clients who wish to encourage birdlife to leave their gardens slightly unkempt in the winter so that birds can feed on the seeds of the perennial plants.