How to Make Attracting Birds Feel Design-y, and Not Ruin the Look of Your Garden
There are a surprising number of benefits to enticing birds to your garden, and it doesn't have to come at a cost to its design
As a thirty-something, I've noticed a certain topic keeps coming up in conversations with friends lately. No, not marathons, but birds. Watching them, specifically (or 'twitching' as it's officially called). Why, you ask? It's a very good question — and one I had myself. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It's an excuse to get outside, off screens, and connect to nature. And couldn't we all do with a bit more of that?
With home wellness trends increasingly turning towards all things analog, it feels fitting that twitching should become trendy — even with a younger crowd. "Bird-watching is a way to practice being present," Dr. Laurie Bruce, LLC, a clinical psychologist and mindfulness coach with over 25 years of experience, tells me. "You’re scanning, listening, noticing subtle movement and sound. That kind of focused attention naturally regulates the nervous system and pulls people out of rumination and back into the present moment."
And while many go out walking, there's no reason we can't bring it into our own modern garden ideas. In fact, garden designer Sarah Murch, who heads up Ellicar, a UK specialist in natural pools and ecological gardens, says it's something people are asking for more: "They're thinking about the environment rather than just creating a garden for themselves," she says.
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You don't need heaps of space (or money) to create a design-forward garden, worthy of watching birds in.
There are plenty of benefits to encouraging biodiversity in your garden, but, perhaps more importantly, it is worth noting that it doesn't have to ruin its style — it doesn't have to mean an overly 'messy' or naturalistic garden.
Instead, Sarah says to focus on three key elements: trees, evergreen shrubs or hedges, and grasses. "Each of these becomes habitat or food for birds," she explains.
And more specifically, she recommends:
- Crab Apple trees: "They look beautiful and are a feast for wood pigeons, doves, blackbirds, fieldfares, and redstarts in winter."
- Alder trees: "For finches and siskins."
- Willows: "They're great for their colored stems, but they also green up first in spring and attract aphids, which feed the first babies of blue tits and other finches."
- Verbena bonariensis plants: "The tiny goldfinches sway on the desiccated stems like little acrobats and feed on the seeds all winter."
- Teasels, veronicastrums, and ornamental thistles: "These are also great for finches in winter, and super architectural."
- Stipa tenuissima grass: "Birds love making nests in dried grasses."
- Thick bark mulch: "Blackbirds in particular love scratching in the mulch to find worms."
Sarah is a garden designer with 25 years of experience. In 2008, she and her family, along with husband Will, a trained horticulturalist, moved into a home on 11 acres. She wanted to create a garden that "felt alive," and, unable to find anyone in the UK who could build a natural pool, she trained in Austria and learned to do it herself. From there, the family-run business Ellicar began, and today, it designs award-winning natural pools and ecological gardens all across the UK.
Don't forget a water source, either. While a natural pool is probably your best bet for attracting birds to your garden — "We have swallows and swifts dipping as we swim, a king fisher regularly visits and fishes in our pool, dragon and damsel flies in summer become food for visiting birds, which include wagtails, oystercatchers, gold crests, reed warblers, gold finches and starlings," says Sarah — a simple bird bath works, too.
And, when you spend enough time looking (and trust me, I did), you can find plenty of stylish birdhouses, baths, and feeders that will work seamlessly with your design, rather than sticking out. Glossy ceramics, architectural steel, timeless terracotta, futuristic shapes, perfectly patinaed iron, and woven seagrass baskets — forget the first image that comes to mind when you think 'bird bath', because here's proof that you can do the 'bird thing', without ruining the design of your garden.
There are plenty of other wellness-y activities that will get you outside, too — why not consider installing a home sauna in your backyard? Now that would be a nice spot to sit and watch the birds from.
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