@Lucid now I understand your thinking! This might be purely for interest then (and for anyone else looking in future), but here is the growing tip of a thin branch that I picked up this morning, broken off by wind or bird. First photo is the branch tip as it was, second photo I've stripped back the leaves to show the spikes, and third is a comparison of spike to my finger.
As you can see, they're lethal. Even at the end of a branch, a spike like that will easily go through hands or a shoe - you can imagine what the mature branches and spikes are like!
Cover your fences with honeysuckles ... they're native plants, the flowers feed the insects, the berries feed the birds and the birds nest in the tangled vines ... we had dunnocks and robins nesting in ours this year.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Birds are great opportunists and when it comes to nest building they don't bother if the plant is native or not. They like shelter and to feel safe and so evergreens are popular as deciduous shrubs are later getting full leaf coverage. Have a look at Cotoneasters. They come in all shapes and sizes, some evergreen and some not, have early flowers the bees love, make good nesting places and have decorative berries in autumn which the birds enjoy too. And they don't have thorns!
In our large wild garden we have a selection of trees and shrubs, from very large to fairly small. We had loads of birds nesting, but apart from the crows at the top of a very tall fir, and the woodpeckers, they mostly went for things such as small conifers and twiggy bushes.
There were at least 4 nests in the ivy that covers the front of the house: goldfinch, pied wagtail, dunnock and blackbird.
Another dunnock chose a small cotoneaster and a chaffinch had a waterside nest in a shrubby potentilla by the pond edge. There were other nests in other conifers and I found an old nest, probably dunnock again, when tidying the Euonymus last week.
We didn't identify all the nest locations, though my daughter spotted 6 dunnock nestplaces, but the parents brought all their offspring to the bird feeders and we had baby greenfinches, more chaffinches and blue and great tits too.
Old trees are good, the great spotted woodpeckers have nested in an old larch for the last 2 years and the stock doves nested somewhere and they like holes in trees. Outbuilding were chosen by 2 sets of wren parents and a robin, as well as the swallows. There are lots of baby robins, and we heard at least 2 male blackbirds singing, so there was more than one nest for both.
One effect of this is that for all of lockdown, until this last week or so, I was unable to perform lots of gardening tasks for fear of disturbing a nesting bird! The garden got rather shaggy and unkempt looking, as so much necessary cutting back got missed and I have a lot to catch up with now it is safe to do so. It is also costing a small fortune in sunflower seed, fat balls and peanuts, but the birds have given us so much pleasure through this bleak time, that it has been more than worth it
@Dovefromabove - it's definitely something to consider, although I was extremely bad at growing honeysuckle in our previous place. I'm not sure my partner would trust it could get large and dense enough to provide cover. I do like the idea of honeysuckle though. I have also spotted that you can get an evergreen honeysuckle for a hedging plant which I appreciate is different to the climbers but looks as though it could be an option too. Hopefully the birds would still make use of it, although it comes back to the question of how thin can you keep it pruned etc.
@Buttercupdays - thanks for your pointers on the plants and birds and I will definitely keep all of that in mind. I believe we might have some dunnocks around here. I did a recording of a few birds singing one morning and was trying to work out all of the new songs - I don't think I identified all of them with 100% certainty but I'm pretty sure that there was a dunnock in there. It's great to hear lots of different bird songs though - we used to have just sparrows as the main residents, and then goldfinches, blackbirds and blue tits would pass over but hardly ever visit the garden. In the new place the goldfinches seem the most noisy and we've seen blackbirds, including a fledgling blackbird, in the garden so far. I also saw several house martins (I think) flying over the other evening. Where the garden is quite well covered we don't actually see much bird activity in the garden for now but you can hear they're around. We will set up proper feeders and will eventually have a pond with a good beach area for them to be able to visit and use, so hopefully we'll see many more.
@strelitzia32 - sorry for my delayed reply. Thanks for your photo of the hawthorn, and that does look very lethal - I would have probably been in a lot of trouble if I'd have planted a lot of those!
Thanks for the photo @Dovefromabove - my honeysuckle was nothing like that so I'm very envious. I did discover about a year ago (several years after planting it) that I'd completely missed that they're woodland plants and prefer to be planted in the shade so that they can climb up towards the light. I did try to treat it like clematis so that the roots were kept shaded but it still didn't get that dense. I'll definitely have to reconsider it though as I'd love to have a batch like yours.
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As you can see, they're lethal. Even at the end of a branch, a spike like that will easily go through hands or a shoe - you can imagine what the mature branches and spikes are like!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
@Dovefromabove - it's definitely something to consider, although I was extremely bad at growing honeysuckle in our previous place. I'm not sure my partner would trust it could get large and dense enough to provide cover. I do like the idea of honeysuckle though. I have also spotted that you can get an evergreen honeysuckle for a hedging plant which I appreciate is different to the climbers but looks as though it could be an option too. Hopefully the birds would still make use of it, although it comes back to the question of how thin can you keep it pruned etc.
@Buttercupdays - thanks for your pointers on the plants and birds and I will definitely keep all of that in mind. I believe we might have some dunnocks around here. I did a recording of a few birds singing one morning and was trying to work out all of the new songs - I don't think I identified all of them with 100% certainty but I'm pretty sure that there was a dunnock in there. It's great to hear lots of different bird songs though - we used to have just sparrows as the main residents, and then goldfinches, blackbirds and blue tits would pass over but hardly ever visit the garden. In the new place the goldfinches seem the most noisy and we've seen blackbirds, including a fledgling blackbird, in the garden so far. I also saw several house martins (I think) flying over the other evening. Where the garden is quite well covered we don't actually see much bird activity in the garden for now but you can hear they're around. We will set up proper feeders and will eventually have a pond with a good beach area for them to be able to visit and use, so hopefully we'll see many more.
Lucid
Lucid
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Lucid