Plants in The SongBird Survival Garden

A valuable tree for smaller gardens, it has white flowers in spring which are great for encouraging pollinators. In the autumn the tree produces red berries that provide food for birds during the winter, particularly thrushes. The canopy branches have thorns which also provide safety and shelter for birds.

A compact blackcurrant with pollinator-friendly spring flowers and summer fruits that the birds, especially blackbirds, will eat.

A small to medium sized shrub that shows good resistance to mildew and is very frost tolerant, so excellent for growing in colder areas. It produces exceptionally large fruit that have a superb rich flavour from mid-July, and an established plant produce up to 3.6kg (8lb). A very popular variety.

Yew hedges provide great dense shelter for birds, especially because they are evergreen.

Needle-like, dark green leaves on horizontal branches and fleshy, cup-shaped, bright-red autumn fruits on female plants. The dark green foliage of this slow-growing, evergreen conifer provides an excellent background for shrub and herbaceous borders. Broadly conical in shape, it’s tolerant to dry shade, chalky and acid soils, and urban pollution. Yew also makes a fabulous, formal hedge.

A long-flowering perennial that is one of the RHS’ ‘Perfect for Pollinators’ plants. The seeds of the plant are loved by goldfinches, so it’s best to wait until the birds have eaten the seed before deadheading.

Purple-eyed flowerheads, each with a ruff of long white florets, form throughout the summer above the clumps of grey-green foliage, creating easy-going groundcover that will thrive in a sunny spot. It’s ideal for a more naturalised setting – and the bees and butterflies love it too.

A low growing, spreading thornless bramble. In summer it produces small pink flowers then are then followed by dark red edible fruits. The ground cover nature of this plant makes it ideal for foraging birds.

A thornless, deciduous, spreading perennial or subshrub to 30cm tall and up to 1m wide with three-lobed, serrated-edged leaves. Pink to rose-purple flowers up to 2.5cm across are borne in summer in groups of 1-3 and are followed by deep red or dark purple edible, roundish fruits up to 1cm in diameter.