{"id":2233,"date":"2017-10-09T04:58:54","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T12:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2233"},"modified":"2017-10-09T04:58:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T12:58:54","slug":"beautyberry-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/beautyberry-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautyberry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Amethyst<\/a>
Amethyst berries light up the garden in early fall (By Photo by Laitche, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=44353508)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Birds love shrubs that produce quantities of fall fruit.\u00a0 Unfortunately birds generally don\u2019t communicate with plant merchandisers.\u00a0 Humans finally began to agree with the birds in the last third of the twentieth century, as the three or even four-season gardening trend took hold.\u00a0 Garden writers caught the bug and began extolling the virtues of fruits like rose hips, viburnum berries and the yellow beads that adorn Oregon grape holly.\u00a0 The incessant clicking of their keyboards probably drowned out the cheers of the birds.<\/p>\n

For garden brilliance, you can\u2019t beat bright red berries, hips or drupes, and the selection of worthy, berry-bearing plants is large.\u00a0 But what if you are partial to blues and purples, or want something just a little different for your landscape?\u00a0 The horticultural answers are out there if you know where to look.<\/p>\n

The most exquisite fall berries sprout on a climbing plant with a name that sounds like something out of a Roald Dahl children\u2019s story\u2014Ampelopsis brevipedunculata.\u00a0 Fortunately, it also carries a more accessible common name, \u201cporcelain vine\u201d or \u201cporcelain berry\u201d.\u00a0 The clusters of berries on this grape family member are painted in Easter egg colors, including shades of yellow, blue, aqua and lavender.\u00a0 Set against a backdrop of dark green, lobed leaves, porcelain berries shine.<\/p>\n

There is only one problem with this beautiful plant.\u00a0 It is a notorious, invasive thug and should be avoided at all costs.\u00a0 Ampelopsis fruits delight the birds, who eat their fill, excrete everywhere and contribute mightily to the spread of an already vigorous genus.\u00a0 If porcelain vine invades your garden, you might enjoy the beautiful fruits, but you will probably rue the day the first sprouts appeared.<\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t want to be strangled in their sleep by an overly-invasive plant, viburnum may be a better choice.\u00a0 Arrowwood viburnum or Viburnum dentatum is a native shrub that sports quantities of white spring flowers in flattened flowerheads called corymbs.\u00a0 Those flowers give way to fall berries that are dark blue to almost black\u2014attractive and distinctive, but not flashy.\u00a0 The birds don\u2019t care and eat them anyway.<\/p>\n

But what if you want the colorful drama of porcelain berry without its obnoxious habits?\u00a0 The answer is easy and the common name says it all\u2014beautyberry.\u00a0 Beautyberry is known botanically as Callicarpa and was first described by Linnaeus back in 1753.\u00a0 The common name is a literal translation of the Latin one, which is derived from two ancient Greek words: \u201ccallos\u201d<\/em>, meaning beauty, and \u201ccarpos\u201d<\/em>, meaning fruit.\u00a0 If you saw beautyberry in the fall, you would know it immediately, because its graceful arching branches bear fat clusters of vivid purple berries.\u00a0 The color and branch configuration are unique and striking.\u00a0 In some species and varieties, the purple shades are the same Easter egg hues you see on porcelain berries, minus the latter\u2019s inherent liabilities.<\/p>\n

Framed by pairs of light to mid-green opposed leaves, and appearing to cascade down the branches, beautyberry fruits may range in color from lavender through deeper velvet purple.\u00a0 They last a good long time on the shrubs, but do not hang around through the winter.\u00a0 Of course, hungry birds may prevent a prolonged display, but the birds have to make their way in a hostile world and it\u2019s hard to begrudge them.<\/p>\n

Longwood Gardens, the renowned botanical institution in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, conducted a trial of callicarpas starting about ten years ago.\u00a0 In judging the quality of the shrubs, the Longwood evaluators considered appearance, hardiness, disease and pest susceptibility and landscape value.\u00a0 The highest rated shrub was Callicarpa bodinieri var. geraldii, which is sold under the name \u2018Profusion\u2019.\u00a0 This upright Chinese species, long favored in Europe, grows between four to six feet tall and wide and produces small, fragrant lavender flowers in spring.\u00a0 The toothed leaves are oval-shaped and emerge purple-bronze in color before changing to green in the summer.\u00a0 At the end of the season, the foliage turns yellow prior to falling from the plant.\u00a0 Like most callicarpas, \u2018Profusion\u2019 prefers full sun for best flower and fruit production, but can manage in light shade.<\/p>\n

Birds, animals and humans are attracted to the berries, but the shrubs are easy on the eyes in spring, summer and fall.\u00a0 Extremely harsh winters may cause the plant to die back to the ground, but branches will generally resprout as the growing season gets underway.\u00a0 If you want to prune any beautyberry to keep the plant to a specific size, the pruning should be done in early spring.\u00a0 This will not affect flowering or berry production, because callicarpas bloom on new wood.<\/p>\n

Native plant lovers may choose to invest in Callicarpa americana, which was also evaluated at Longwood.\u00a0 The leaves are lighter green than those of the bodinieri species, creating a nice contrast with the fruits, which are somewhat darker and larger.\u00a0 Some varieties of the Japanese native, Callicarpa japonica, also offer heavy fruit production and the distinctive light purple berries.<\/p>\n

In my town, I have seen a few beautyberry bushes, the most effective of which grows in a terraced bed with its arching stems cascading over a low retaining wall.\u00a0 The lilac-purple berries glow in the mellow October light.<\/p>\n

You can obtain the \u2018Profusion\u2019 cultivar online from Monrovia at http:\/\/www.monrovia.com\/plant-catalog\/plants\/411\/profusion-beautyberry\/<\/a>, or from local retail nurseries that carry Monrovia branded plants.\u00a0 Those same nurseries may also offer one or two other beautyberry varieties and it is always worth asking nursery personnel which of them perform best locally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Birds love shrubs that produce quantities of fall fruit.\u00a0 Unfortunately birds generally don\u2019t communicate with plant merchandisers.\u00a0 Humans finally began to agree with the birds in the last third of the twentieth century, as the three or even four-season gardening trend took hold.\u00a0 Garden writers caught the bug and began extolling the virtues of fruits … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[472,1543,471,1735,263,1738,1736,1737],"class_list":["post-2233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-beautyberry","tag-bird-gardening","tag-callicarpa-dichoma","tag-fall-shrubs","tag-mint-family","tag-ornamental-shrubs","tag-purple-berries","tag-wildlife-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2235,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233\/revisions\/2235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}