Coverage for birds in the garden

My garden is new and trying to find ideas.

I want to put a border in the back of the garden and put a small tree or something to provide coverage for the birds near the feeder.

Any recommendations or tips?

Thanks, Adam.

 

Just be aware that birds are very clever things. As I found out once (and then found lots of evidence online to back my own observations), birds will case out a feeder looking for ambush opportunities before they use it. Therefore when deciding what 'cover' to put in, you need to think, 'if I put this here, will a cat be able to use it as cover to sneak up? If the answer is yes, then chances are, the birds wont use it.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'll bear that in mind.

 

You could buy a specimen fruiting cherry. Choose the variety so won't it grow too big, but it will give the birds something to eat when the cherries ripen. Or else something like a Sorbus (Rowan) which produces berries.

I have bought 'seconds' from mailordertrees.co.uk and they have been decent quality. Have a look also at their special offer clearance trees. They aren't massive (probably around six foot but sizes are given) but big enough for small birds to use.

Shrubs are good as well because the birds will be able to get inside but cats won't. If you buy a half standard then it will be tree-shaped.

If you hunt around you should be able to find somewhere online selling bare root plants which are cheaper, but they will soon stop selling them.

Not sure what time of day it is in your pic, but if it is shady like that a lot of the day then you need to choose something which doesn't mind shade (so the above may not suit).

 

@merleworld thanks for your thorough response, very helpful. The fruiting cherry sounds perfect as want it to be about 6ft -7ft. I've never thought about buying plants etc from a website, I might give that a go.

Have you bought bare root plants before and if so have they done well?

The garden is south facing so in the summer the sun is on the garden for most of the day.

 

I have bought bare root plants online and they have been fine You may get some fruit trees in Aldi or other supermarket, but beware that bare root trees bought from there may be half dead because they could have been sitting there un-watered for a while.

 

you will have to quick buying bare root trees its been warm past couple of weeks so the season of bare rooted trees will be coming to a end not like last year it was safe to buy until mid April.

 

Ok thanks, hopefully I won't have too much trouble finding one, haven't had chance it look yet as been away the last few days.