What a pretty area - I agree on bark. Blackbirds might strew it around a bit though. How lovely it must be to sit on that bench in the summer.
You're absolutely right, blackbirds love our bark paths. Our blackbirds are called Mr and Mrs Bagger, after the Bagger 288 (https://youtu.be/azEvfD4C6ow ). I just nudge the bark back into place during my morning audit. I realised early on that I'm gardening for the wildlife even more than the aesthetics. It's like watching a movie instead of viewing a painting.
Our wood pigeons just turn the edge of the lawn under the bird feeders into a tramped down sea of mud - nothing survives. I've had to erect a kind of tent of plastic mesh over the nearby tiny bulbs under the magnolia so that they can survive. Last year I tried a line of woody heucheras as a lst line of defence, they didn't survive for long!
I did think of putting a spiky dwarf hedge along the edge but that would then get me!
We have no pigeons on our feeders (which are in squirrel-proof cages), but the sheer number of finches & sparrows stomping around the feeder stems, waiting for other birds to drop bits of sunflower heart, damages the lawn. Once the grass starts looking yellow and flattened, I move the feeder pole to a different spot and swap the feeder for a clean one - generally every 2 or 3 weeks. It's as much to keep the birds healthy as to save the lawn, because the "fat finch disease" struck last year.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
We dont feed anything with wheat or barley in it … we just feed sunflower hearts … the pigeons sit in the ash tree and on the fence waiting for the goldfinches to arrive … when the goldies land on the feeders the pigeons fly down and wait on the ground beneath the feeders for the bits the goldies discard. 😆
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I use no mess feeds too - which have less wheat/barley in them. That's what attracts pigeons, and also doesn't get eaten by the smaller birds. The cheap mixes contain a lot of wheat - which is why it's cheap, but it means you're getting less, in real terms, for your money. We still have wood pigeons as they eat the other seed too, but it means you aren't paying for stuff which isn't that useful in a domestic garden. It also germinates quite often, but is easy to pull out.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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I did think of putting a spiky dwarf hedge along the edge but that would then get me!
@Redwind, Not sure I understand, why wheat free bird feed?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We still have wood pigeons as they eat the other seed too, but it means you aren't paying for stuff which isn't that useful in a domestic garden.
It also germinates quite often, but is easy to pull out.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...