In winter a corps of plants decorates the landscape naturally with jewel-like berries. Some plants are bold and ostentatious in displaying their fruit while others are modest and quiet. All add color, seasonal interest, and food for wildlife in a winterberry wonderland.
Table of Contents
Evergreen hollies are, perhaps, the most commonly recognized berry producer. The pyramid shaped American holly tree, Ilex opaca, presents a dramatic show of red berries against its spiny toothed dark green foliage. The mounded Burford holly shrub, Ilex cornuta ‘Burfordii’, widely used in hedges and foundation plantings, can look as if it has more fruit than foliage.
What deciduous hollies lack in leaves in winter, they more than compensate with berries. The common winterberry, Ilex verticillata ‘Winter red’, the Carolina winterberry, Ilex x ‘Carolina cardinal’, and possum haw, Ilex deciduas ‘Warren red’ are replete with cold-hardy scarlet berries. For a candy cane effect, gardeners alternate white winterberry, Ilex serrata leucocarpa, with the reds.
Hollies are dioecious. For maximum berry production a male plant must be planted among every five or six female plants.
The petite native sparkleberry tree, Vaccinium arboreum, bears black berries. Wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens, is an aromatic evergreen creeping shrublet with scarlet berries. The entire plant is food for white-tailed deer, gray squirrel, red fox, and black bear. The berry is sought by pheasant, grouse, bobwhite, and wild turkey.
Dogwoods like Cornus kousa overwinter with red berries until the birds deplete. The gold dust plant, Aucuba japonica, with splotches of yellow seeming to be spray painted on the lustrous dark green leathery leaves has red berries in winter.
Mockingbirds, ruby-crowned kinglets, myrtle warblers, and cedar waxwings take advantage of the grayish resin-coated berries covering wax myrtles, Myrica cerifera. The resin from the berry of this native shrub is used to scent bayberry candles.
By February the red berrylike fruit on the photinia, Photinia fraseri, will be devoured by flocks of cedar waxwings.
Frugiverous birds bombard cleyera, Cleyera japonica, for the globular black berries.
Many members of the barberry family are characterized by thorny stems or spiny-leaves and beautiful berries. Barberries are to the garden what barbed wire is to the farm. Burgundy leaved barberries, Berberis thunberii, produce reddish orange berries each winter. The leatherleaf mahonia, Mahonia bealei, bears clusters of blue grape-like fruits relished by birds.
One thornless barberry is heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica. Clusters of red berries hang from the branch tips. The variety ‘Alba’ features white berries.
The snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus, a deciduous shrub with waxy berries as white as snow, is a favorite native heirloom garden shrub. The red snowberry, a southeastern native also known as coralberry or Indian berry, produces clusters of crimson berries. Snowberries are a food for birds and mammals like quail, grouse, rabbits and bears.
A number of groundcovers place berries underfoot. The partridge berry, Mitchella repens, is a native evergreen with prostrate creeping stems often found in deciduous woodlands. The bright red berries are sought by quail, deer, fox and raccoon.
The ground cover Lilyturf, Liriope muscari, is often used under trees or in shade where little else will cover bare soil so rapidly. Shiny black berries appear in winter. Mondo grass, Ophiopogon japonicus, another rapid grower and survivor of drought, cold, shade and sun produces blue berrylike fruit hidden among its grassy foliage.
Overhead in the treetops hangs one white berry laden plant especially popular during the Christmas holidays but present year round, mistletoe, Phoradendron serotinum. The pearly white fruit contains a sticky seed which is deposited on host trees by a bird’s beak, feather or dropping or a mammal’s fur. Many birds enjoy the berries including robins, bluebirds, mourning doves, and evening grosbeaks. Chickadees, house wrens, chipping sparrows and pine siskins nest in mistletoe. The great purple hairstreak butterfly relies solely on mistletoe as its host plant. The female lays its eggs on the leaves and the caterpillar feeds on the mistletoe leaves.
From head to toe we can be surrounded by a winter wonderland of decorative and useful berries.
Most homeowners have probably spent hours looking at the different types of garden seeders. You may have even come across…
When it comes to vehicle lovers, cleaning their cars on a regular basis is essential to maintaining the paint job's…
Gas chainsaws are the perfect tool for a variety of outdoor tasks, including chopping up logs for firewood, clearing brush…
A home can be a daunting project, one that takes some time and energy to maintain. With hard work, determination,…
Today ginger is grown all over tropical and subtropical regions in Asia, in parts of Africa and South America, and…
Onions are one of the most popular vegetables in the world, and growing onions is a snap in the home…