One of the most underrated garden plants has got to be plain old Cotoneaster horizontalis. This recurring emblem of so many neglected town gardens, with its herringbone branches throwing brave ladders up dusty walls (it is remarkably resistant to atmospheric pollution) actually comes from a distant, exotic place.
It was found in western China and introduced to Europe around 1870 by the French missionary, Armand David, who indulged in a fair amount of freelance plant collecting while he wasn't saving souls. David was one of three plant-hunting Gallic priests - the others being Delavay and Farges - and his name is commemorated in the famous handkerchief or dove tree, Davidia involucrata.
Right now cotoneasters of all varieties are in brilliant berry, but none more so than C. horizontalis - with its bony fish-skeleton nattily clothed in waxy red beads and tiny, shiny dark leaves. During summer its frothy white flowers are mobbed by bees, each blossom bumbled and buzzed countless times, ensuring perfect pollination and the subsequent crop of radiant fruits. Then around about the time its leaves begin to flush with autumnal crimson the birds - thrushes, starlings, blackcaps - move in to strip off the berries. Every garden should have one.
The cotoneaster is just one of many plants that provide excellent avian fuel. It's no trouble to leave it alone to provide its bounty, in the same way as we leave other pretty berry-producers to do their provisioning - pyracantha, hawthorn, rowan, barberry, holly, to mention a few. But more restraint is needed when it comes to plants that yield nourishing seeds, or that give cover to over-wintering insects, an essential source of protein for our flying friends. Every autumn, as the garden starts to wither towards winter, I have an almighty aesthetic dilemma on my hands. The clean person in me wants to snip away the brown, and sometimes unsightly, spent flower stems, but the bird-lover in me begs for clemency. Usually, bird-lover wins - egged on by a third person, Lazy Bones.
It was Lazy Bones who also counselled that great growths of common ivy should be left on top of the walls all spring and summer while the birds were nesting. Now she says that they can't be cut down because they are garnished with the olive-coloured berries that bring in the endearingly-thick, lumbering wood pigeons and the more sprightly blackbirds, thrushes and blackcaps. So I' m waiting until spring (and the nesting season?).
The bird-friendly garden does not have to be an unholy mess, though. It can be a tidy-looking place where, in the horticultural equivalent of sweeping the dirt under the carpet, there are cleverly concealed, somewhat unkempt areas. Here plants are let go to seed and leaf litter is left on the ground to harbour insects and the other creepy-crawlies that feed wrens, dunnocks, robins, blackbirds and thrushes. And, speaking of insects, you'll notice that some evergreen shrubs and flowering perennials (like penstemon, wallflower and Aubreita) support small colonies of aphids over the next few months. For goodness sake, leave them there: they are a life-saver - literally - for tits, goldcrests, sparrows and other little birds that lose large amounts of body weight every single winter night and need a quick, nourishing breakfast.
Plants like sunflower, artichoke, achillea, teasel, phlomis, agapanthus, poppy, leek and other alliums have decorative seedheads, and many gardeners enjoy their sculptural forms over the winter. In my own garden, if they are in the wrong place, or have toppled over awkwardly, I cut them down, gather them into slightly batty-looking bouquets and attach them to stakes at strategic points in the border. The birds love them, not just for the food, but as vantage points for scoping their domain.
Along with food, birds need water - for drinking and bathing. A bird bath will do, of course, but a garden pond is better, providing there is a shallow part where they can safely stand, dunk their heads and flick their wings about.
Shelter is the third requirement, and it should be furnished by as diverse a range of plants as possible, in "layers" that imitate the edge of a woodland: trees (including evergreens for early-nesting birds), shrubs and herbaceous plants. Obviously, native trees like rowan, hawthorn and hazel are more attractive to insects and the birds that feed on them, but in the compact garden there may be room for just one small tree and a shrub or two. In this case, the tree needs to please the gardener, as well as the feathered population, from season to season. Cherry, whitebeam, holly, Malus (crab apple) and Amelanchier (June berry) all have more than one period of interest - and now is a good time to plant them.
It's worth noting that, with the shrinkage of their natural habitat through development and new kinds of farming, many birds are completely dependent on the pickings they get in our back gardens. We have a duty to look after them. But what a pleasant chore: the constantly unfolding drama of our feathered neighbours is far better than any soap opera. Property disputes, greedy feast s, mysterious strangers, bad behaviour, romantic courtship, sex, babies. It's all there - right in your back garden.
For a leaflet on Gardening for Birds, send a stamped addressed envelope to BirdWatch Ireland, 8 Longford Place, Monkstown, Co Dublin.