Jane Powers loves berry-bearing plants and trees, for the varied bird life they attract
An autumn garden without berries is as lifeless as a landscape without birds. Berries and birds: if you plant the first, the second will come. And a berrying shrub that is a guaranteed bird magnet is Cotoneaster horizontalis. Yes, I know, often this poor thing is seen in the most neglected corner of town gardens, a dusty herringbone of branches leaning up against a wall - not a pretty picture. But when grown in a sunny position the sturdy Chinese native covers itself with red, waxy berries. To the birds passing above, they shine out like a neon sign spelling "Free Food! All You Can Eat!"
In our garden, it is this same cotoneaster that pulls in the winter-visiting blackcaps, in their sombre grey suits and dark berets. Starlings, thrushes and tits are also drawn to its crimson fruits. If you don't like the stiff, fan shape of C. horizontalis, there are more than 150 species and cultivars, although only a few are widely available. 'Coral Beauty' is a little less rigid, while 'Hybridus Pendulus' is (as its name suggests), a weeping kind, and C. procumbens 'Queen of Carpets' makes a red-speckled mat.
For larger gardens there are C. frigidus and C. salicifolius 'Rothschildianus', the latter with yellow fruits. If you're a meanie about your berries, and want to keep them all for yourself, then yellow (and white) ones are supposed to be less attractive to birds. The lipstick-red fruits of skimmia are also avoided by birds, and are useful for brightening up Christmas wreaths, if all the holly berries have been eaten.
Most skimmias are dioecious, that is, male and female flowers are carried on different plants, so if you want berries you must plant a sexually complementary pair. An exception is S. japonica subsp. reevesiana which is hermaphrodite, and has all the requisite bits to make its own fruits. Skimmia is a member of Rutaceae, better known as the citrus family - one of the few of the clan to fruit freely in our climate. The screaming red berries, however, are not edible - as any bird will tell you.
It is the rose family (Rosaceae) - of which cotoneaster is a member - that gives us by far the greatest number of autumn berry-bearers. Among the roses themselves, many of the species have good red or scarlet hips, including Rosa canina, R. glauca and R. rubiginosa. Those of R. rugosa are important-looking, pot-bellied receptacles, while those of R. moyesii resemble ancient terracotta vessels.
Pyracantha, like its cotoneaster cousin, has beady fruits and, often, a rigid growth habit. Left to its own devices it can become an ungainly, ugly shrub - all thorny elbows and knees. But trained against a wall and kept pruned, it makes a hard-wearing evergreen upholstery generously spangled with berries, where birds can safely nest (predators can't get beyond the prickles), and - in autumn - dine.
For the maximum amount of fruit, train the main stems horizontally, as with an espaliered apple. This reduces the sap flow to the stem tips and thwarts "apical dominance", the natural inclination of the leading shoots to grow ever upwards. Instead, the plant channels its energies into growing laterals (also known as "spurs") - the shoots that bear flowers, and later, fruits. Prune these laterals in spring to three or four leaves from where they join the parent stem. And, to ensure a dazzling display of berries, get the secateurs out again in late summer, and snip away the new growth (again to three or four leaves) that obscures the ripening fruit.
A wall of pyracantha requires dedication, but when laden with drifts of blossom or sprays of red berries it is a gorgeous sight (and I thank the gardeners who have the patience to maintain such set pieces). But, if all that primping and pruning of hostile, spiny material makes you baulk, then it's time to contemplate other, more congenial berry producers.
Perhaps the easiest (and also perhaps the most elegant) of the Rosaceae family is the Sorbus genus. Best known is our native rowan or mountain ash (S. aucuparia) with its jangles of brilliant red berries. It takes its species name from the Latin "aucupor", which means to catch birds - as its fruits were once used for this purpose. It is still an infallible bird catcher, attracting all kinds of avian creatures to its bounty. Three cultivated selections of the native are 'Asplenifolia', 'Sheerwater Seedling' and 'Fastigiata'. Other red-berried Sorbus, include S. commixta and the Swedish whitebeam, S. intermedia. Our own whitebeam, S. aria (and its cultivars 'Lutescens' and 'Majestica'), also bears red berries.
There are white- and pink-berried kinds too - among them, S. cashmiriana, S. hupehensis and S. vilmorinii - which add a pleasing, sugary note to the autumn garden. I can't warm to the yellow-fruited Sorbus 'Joseph Rock' though, nor the yallery crab apple, 'Golden Hornet', a member of the related 'Malus' genus. I suspect that there are few who share my prejudice though, as these are two popular trees - and the latter has been given an Award of Garden Merit (AGM) by the Royal Horticultural Society.
Other AGM-winning crab apples wearing seasonally-correct (to my narrow mind) red or red-tinged autumn livery are 'John Downie', 'Evereste' and 'Red Sentinel'.
The last of the rose family (for we've hardly strayed beyond it) to offer autumnal berried treasures are the hawthorns (Crataegus). Be careful which one you choose though: one of the great May-time show-offs, the double-flowered 'Paul's Scarlet', is almost fruitless in autumn. Double flowers - that is, those with lots of extraneous petals - rarely bear fruits because the sexual parts are either hidden from pollinators by the extra frills, or have been modified into the fripperies themselves. Our native May tree, C. monogyna, and the centuries-old hybrid hawthorn Prunifolia are reliable fruiters.
Another family, Caprifoliaceae, gives us a motley crew of autumn fruiters. Most conspicuous of these is elder (Sambucus), with its dark and shiny berries, beloved of birds - but under-appreciated by humans today (with bramble berries, rosehips, sloes and crab apples it makes a richly-flavoured hedgerow jelly). Honeysuckle (Lonicera), snowberry (Symphoricarpus), pheasant berry (Leycesteria) and viburnum are members of the same tribe.
Berberis and Euonymus (the native E. europaeus, and E. alatus) produce berries ranging from blue-black to shocking pink and orange. And holly, of course, gives us blood-red, glowing orbs (and occasionally white, yellow or black), while its Yuletide song-mate, ivy, produces heavy black fruits.
The latter brings us back to where we started, because ivy berries are popular with robins, thrushes and great, lumbering woodpigeons. If you plant them, the birds will come - and eat them. And a while later, after they've processed the nourishing fleshy bits, they'll plant the seeds somewhere else. Nature is a clever gardener - always delegating.