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A good small tree for birds
badgeryboo
Posts: 3
I have a holly tree that the birds adore, its often full of goldfinches, tits & sparrows as well as the occasional robin. Unfortunately it needs to go as its too near a wall, is damaging my shed and and is covering a lot of the neighbour's small garden. But I'll be extremely sad to see it go. Can anyone suggest a repalcement tree, something that wouldn't get too much taller than, say, 15 feet but is also not to wide. It would only get morning sun until it reaches above the wall but after that it gets full sun all day.
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If thorny is OK then hawthorn. Birds love them and there are some really ornamental varieties (Paul's Scarlet being one of the best known). Elder is also very popular and again there's the black leaf (pink flowers) one or a golden leaf one. Both are quite small or can be kept small. Purple hazel (filbert) is pretty but might not be ideal if you have a big squirrel population (they love the nuts).
Or buddleia of course. Ours is full of finches
Last edited: 12 April 2017 17:18:24
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Or amelanchier, crab apple, or rowan.
I'll stop now
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I love a buddleia, thanks for the suggestion. I'll check the iothers out as well. Hawthorn would be good for protection against cats as the holly was, but there's the thorny problem of keeping it in check!
Is it not possible for you to hard prune your holly? A local nursery does mine every few years (free)as he uses the holly for Christmas wreaths.
The guy that quoted me said to prune it sufficiently to save the shed and away from the neighbour's garden, it would end up a trunk with sticks. The leaves are all on the outer part of the branches. It really is only 3 ft from the shed and a foot from the neighbours wall. Its also now up against a picket fence of mine and the trunk isn't going to get any smaller! And the quote for taking it down was only marginally higher than the pruning option. It'll be a real shame for the birds but hopefully they'll only disappear for one season if I can get a replacement of some sort in there straight away.