Show Wildlife Some Love This Winter

As the sun and flowers fade, and the colder days start drawing in, our Wildlife friends start seeking places for shelter and food throughout Winter. Incorporating certain Plants and Shrubbery into your landscaping can help them through these months, and look great in your outdoor space too! Here are some examples for you to gain inspiration from:

1. Eastern White Pine

• Provides shelter and cones for animals to forage. The cones grow between 8 and 20cm in length, and hang from the branches. This tree can grow up to 35 Metres tall, and to around 140cm in diameter. The bark features thick ridges and is a grey/brown colour. The Eastern White Pine has skinny needles that grow in bunches of 5.

2. Winter Honeysuckle

• This is a great choice to help Insects searching for nectar in the Winter. The Winter Honeysuckle flowers all through the Winter, so not only does it help Wildlife, it also looks beautiful (And smells wonderful too!) This plant is popular for the fact it fills the air with a gorgeous scent, while nothing else is blooming. Winter Honeysuckle is a Shrub, not a Vine, and can grow as tall as 8ft and as wide as 10ft. You can keep this plant in bounds by pruning twice a year.

3. Winter Red Winterberry

• This plant is beautiful in any Winter Landscape, and provides berries for foraging animals to eat, as well as shelter. After losing it’s leaves in late Autumn, this plant is bold and bright with it’s array of shining red berries – perfectly fitting into the quintessential image most people have of the Holiday Season. For the best berry display, both a male and female must be placed together. This plant ranges from 3 – 15ft tall. It makes for an ideal natural hedge, and looks great at the back of a border for seasonal interest.

4.  Eichholz Cotoneaster

• Another popular berry choice; this plant provides food and shelter for foraging Wildlife in the Winter months. What makes this plant different is that it is very low growing, so makes for excellent groundcover, and it is evergreen. This plant again features showy red berries throughout Winter, so is an essential for any Winter Landscape Design. This plant grows quickly and needs watering regularly. This plant is a popular choice for slopes, or in between boulders that are typically found by waterfalls. It can also be used as a container plant to add interest.

5. Snowberry

• A charming and beautiful choice with a real wow factor. This plant provides excellent shelter and food for Wildlife and looks stunning – it just belongs in any winter scene! These berries are considered poisonous to people, but are an important Winter Bird food. This plant grows up to 1.5m tall, and 1.5m wide.  This plant can tolerate strong winds because of their vigorous roots.