Berrying shrubs so bountiful
Garden Expert
Many gardens lack fall focal points, but gardeners are learning. Each year, more are planting fall-blooming perennials and replanting summer containers with long-lasting fall plants.
But where are the berrying shrubs? Berries provide color and sometimes-edible treats for us (rose hip jelly, elderberry wine, fresh serviceberries). But local and migrating birds love and need them most of all.
Many plants are dioecious, meaning they have female and male flowers on separate plants. To get berries, you need two plants in the same area. (One male suffices for several females. Distance varies but side-by-side isn’t necessary.) Dioecious plants include American bittersweet, hollies ( Ilex), hops, kiwis, sumacs and most yews.
Other plants have both male and female parts in their flowers but need pollen from a second plant in order to set fruit or produce abundantly. Many of our apple trees are like that, but also bayberries, blueberries, crabapples, elderberries and viburnums. If your specimen isn’t berrying, plant two more.
You may plant these in the fall for a head start on next season’s flowers and fruits. Birds may eat the berries now but often wait until late winter when they need the nutrition. Nurseries may carry some natives and cultivars of native species; all are valuable for nesting, protection and food (but check if they berry):
Amelanchier (serviceberries): No. 1 on my must-have list; large shrub or small tree with spring flowers, delicious summer fruit, great fall color.
Aronia (black, red chokeberries): Plant in groups for bird garden; brilliant fall colors; known for highest antioxidant concentration.
Callicarpa (non-native species used here; American not hardy): exquisite purple berries.
Cornus (dogwoods): Shrubby dogwoods vary in landscape uses. Some are fine specimens; others best in hedgerow or naturalized. See the elegant pagoda dogwood, the wilder silky dogwood (blue fruit, great bird value, suckering), the gray dogwood (white fruit, flame-red fall leaves, great for hedges). Red Osier dogwood (red-twigged dogwood) is most popular for its brilliant winter stem color.
Ilex (hollies): Huge genus; not all spiny-leaved, holiday-decorating hollies. Don’t miss the stunning red berries of Ilex verticillata (winterberry). Find the slow-growing Ilex glabra (inkberry) for deer-resistance, bird value and graceful form.
Lindera benzoin (spicebush):How about a cluster? Yellow leaves, red berries in fall; deer-resistant; food for Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies.
Viburnums: Every viburnum is worth owning for flowers, structure, foliage texture and berries. Many are our most regal specimen landscape plants. The VBL (viburnum leaf beetle) has mostly wiped out the native cranberrybush (V. trilobum) and arrowwood (V. dentatum), but the others have come through fine and we should use them in yards and woodlands.
Other berrying shrubs: Sambucus (elderberries), Rhus (sumac), Myrica (bayberry) and Vaccinium (blueberries).
Sally Cunningham is a garden writer, lecturer and consultant.
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