Storing Cotoneaster berries for bird food
 

Not quite gardening but some on here may have an answer.
We have a couple of large Cotoneaster bushes which are popular with
the local bird population who are tucking in well,however a large
number of berries are falling and just lying on a path and flower
beds. It seems a shame to see them rot when in the depths of winter
the berries that don't drop will have all been eaten.
Has anyone any suggestions as the best way to store those I could pick
up so they could be used as bird food in a few months time.

G.Harman

Storing Cotoneaster berries for bird food
 

On 18/09/2012 18:26, wrote:
Not quite gardening but some on here may have an answer.
We have a couple of large Cotoneaster bushes which are popular with
the local bird population who are tucking in well,however a large
number of berries are falling and just lying on a path and flower
beds. It seems a shame to see them rot when in the depths of winter
the berries that don't drop will have all been eaten.
Has anyone any suggestions as the best way to store those I could pick
up so they could be used as bird food in a few months time.

G.Harman


Strange. I never see birds on our c.horizontalis, whereas the
pyracanthas next to it are routinely stripped (mostly by blackbirds)

Storing Cotoneaster berries for bird food
 

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:26:23 +0100, wrote:

Not quite gardening but some on here may have an answer.
We have a couple of large Cotoneaster bushes which are popular with
the local bird population who are tucking in well,however a large
number of berries are falling and just lying on a path and flower
beds. It seems a shame to see them rot when in the depths of winter
the berries that don't drop will have all been eaten.
Has anyone any suggestions as the best way to store those I could pick
up so they could be used as bird food in a few months time.

G.Harman

It's unusual for birds to drop berries like this. More usually, the
birds ingest the berries and poop out the seeds (cotoneaster is one of
those shrubs listed as invasive for this reason). If you have ground
feeders such as thrushes and blackbirds, the berries may be scooped up
once other food sources diminish.

Otherwise, they will rot down and cannot really be stored. OTOH, the
seeds within the berries could well germinate and you will have lots
of little cotoneaster seedlings developing. So you may nevertheless
want to try to collect the berries, at least from the beds and
borders!

Alternatively, set up a cotoneaster nursery!

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

Storing Cotoneaster berries for bird food
 

wrote in message
...
Not quite gardening but some on here may have an answer.
We have a couple of large Cotoneaster bushes which are popular with
the local bird population who are tucking in well,however a large
number of berries are falling and just lying on a path and flower
beds. It seems a shame to see them rot when in the depths of winter
the berries that don't drop will have all been eaten.
Has anyone any suggestions as the best way to store those I could pick
up so they could be used as bird food in a few months time.

G.Harman

Freeze them. I haven't tried with cotoneaster but it's successful with rowan
berries so should work.

Tina

Storing Cotoneaster berries for bird food
 

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:15:27 +0100, Jake
wrote:

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:26:23 +0100, wrote:

Not quite gardening but some on here may have an answer.
We have a couple of large Cotoneaster bushes which are popular with
the local bird population who are tucking in well,however a large
number of berries are falling

It's unusual for birds to drop berries like this. More usually, the
birds ingest the berries and poop out the seeds (cotoneaster is one of
those shrubs listed as invasive for this reason).

The birds are passing them through ok,need to sweep the path 4 times a
day or the mess gets trodden into the door mat. It's the berries that
are just shaken ,knocked or just fall off which I was hoping to save.

What I have more a less decided to do is just sweep them up and place
them in a different part of the garden so some other birds can have a
chance at them without getting into territorial fighting.

G.Harman