Berried Treasure
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During my time in the nursery industry it always surprised me just how little forward planning was considered — by the gardeners, not the nurseries. For example, we all love spring bulbs, but the trouble is everyone wants them when they’re in flower, but for a spring display you need to plant in summer and autumn, by which time amny gardeners have forgotten about spring bulbs. And until it became common to grow just about everything in containers, the same could have been said for the likes of cherry trees and roses. The masses didn’t think about them until the flowers opened, by which time the smart gardeners had already bought the best varieties.
So, thinking it was about time for a piece about trees and shrubs with interesting
or colourful berries, April–May seemed the best time because that’s when you
can see most of them, quite literally, in the flesh and make a choice.
Remember, though, that you have to plan and look ahead to buy and plant when
stock is available. These days that’s most of the year, but don’t expect
nursery specimens to give you an accurate idea of a fully grown plant in all
its glory or that you’ll get a great show in the first season or that every
season will be equally colourful. The quality of fruiting is dependent on many
factors and is one of the more variable features among garden plants.
Incidentally, berry is a technical term for a pulpy fruit with a thin skin. It’s also a
general name for any small soft fruit and that’s how I’m using it here,
encompassing with it more specific terms such as aril, drupe, pome and
hesperidium. Drag out that dusty botanical dictionary
for definitions of those names.
For plants, distributing their seed is almost as important as setting it. To expand their
range, they use as many distribution strategies as they do methods to ensure
pollination. Colourful berries are one and are usually there to attract
something that eats them. The seeds within the fruit pass through the digestive
system of that agent and with luck are deposited some distance from the parent
plant.
So berries are a part of plants’ reproductive systems and you don’t get berries without
flowers, pollinated ones at that. Any orchardist knows that unless the flowers
are properly pollinated the fruit set will be poor. The first part of getting a
good crop of fruit, therefore, is a good flowering season with plenty of
pollinators. Just how the flowers are pollinated varies considerably. Bees are
the most obvious insect pollinators, though many beetles and moths also do the
job. Pyracantha and Cotoneaster are just as likely to be
pollinated by flies as bees, which may account for their rather urine-like
scent.
The fruit is really just the final product of a long chain of events. Trouble at any
point along the chain will lead to a poor crop or the plant my abort fruiting
altogether. Sometimes, in a last fling at reproduction, a plant will produce an
amazing crop of fruit, then die. The point is that you
can’t expect neglected, unhealthy or badly located plants to fruit well. When
you choose a fruiting plant remember that you have
take care of all of its requirements to get the best display.
Ample moisture during the ripening period will plump up the fruit; sunshine will
ripen it and shelter from strong winds will make sure it stays there long
enough to ripen. Very heavy crops may need to be thinned to increase the size
of the berries. Also, fertilisers can be use to boost fruiting. While you need
to be careful with nitrogen-rich fertilisers like urea, which can lead to lush
foliage but few flowers, applying a general fertiliser or super-phosphate just
before or at bud burst will produce strong new growth and prevent premature
fruit drop, and high potash fertilisers later in the season will help to ripen
and colour the fruit.
Remember too, that trimming a plant will affect how and when it fruits. Ornamentals are
no different from edible fruiting plants — some flower on old wood, some on new
season’s growth — so if you prune at the wrong time you can badly affect
flowering and fruiting. Of course, there often comes a time when you just have
to cut a plant back and you may have to sacrifice a year’s fruiting.
Because most fruiting plants flower in spring and summer, their crops ripen from late
summer to early winter. There are some exceptions, such as the autumn- to
winter-flowering Mahonia species, but
generally Keats was right to call autumn the season of mists and mellow
fruitfulness, so now, as the weather really cools, is the time to look around
and find what most appeals to you.
Having decided on a few preferences, watch how well the fruit lasts. Does it fall quickly, do
the birds soon eat it or does it last well into winter? Some fruit, such as
that of the Strawberry Tree (Arbutus
unedo), appears quite unpalatable to local birds, though presumably it
appeals to animals somewhere, otherwise it’s a poor distribution technique.
There are so many fruiting plants that I find it difficult to play favourites, but among
those I most look forward to each year are:
Wilson’s Barberry (Berberis wilsoniae), which although
almost a weed in many areas becomes a vivid mass of orange, red and yellow tones as
its berries combine with autumn foliage colour to generate visual heat.
Clerodendrum trichotomum
gives as much colour from the red calyces surrounding the blue fruit as the
fruit itself. It’s the contrast between the two colours that really appeals.
Coprosma acerosa forma brunnea is a wiry-stemmed,
spreading native shrub found from coastal to
low alpine areas. While useful as a groundcover, it’s the translucent blue
berries that appeal to me. Other coprosmas and corokias offer bright or
unusually-coloured fruit.
Himalayan Strawberry Tree (Cornus capitata) is a genuine double-duty plant. It has beautiful cream flower bracts in
spring and showy red fruit in autumn. Birds just adore the fruit, but the crop
is usually so abundant that it doesn’t matter. Besides, if they didn’t eat it,
there’d be a real mess when it fell.
Cotoneaster includes a huge range of shrubs and
trees, deciduous and evergreen, nearly all of which bear red or orange-red
berries. They’re tough old campaigners that don’t need much looking after and
perform reliably year after year. I particularly like the weeping standards,
which often trail a curtain of red berries right down to ground level.
Hawthorns (Crataegus spp.) can sometimes
provide both beautiful spring flowers and autumn fruit, though usually they’re
best at one or the other, not both. My favourite is the Carriere Hawthorn
(C. × lavallei), a deciduous tree that carries its fruit over several
months but which seldom
ripens fully before late May or early June.
Spindle Tree (Euonymus europaeus) Weedy? Unsightly? Well, maybe, but not when those unusual orange-hearted pink fruits ripen and combine with flame red autumn foliage. Grow it somewhere where it doesn’t matter how it looks from winter to late summer, though make sure it gets plenty of light.
Fuchsia procumbens is one of our native fuchsias and
one of the few among this fancy-flowered genus to be grown for its fruit, which
stand out well against the light green leaves and varies in colour from red to
plum purple. Another native, also found in Tasmania, is Hymenanthera angustifolia,
which bears white berries with large grey patches — not pretty but distinctive.
Equally distinctive are the purple fruits of the Whiteywood or Mahoe
(Melicytus ramiflora). Look for them from late March.
The Wonder Tree (Idesia polycarpa) is a common sight in many parts of the country. And so it should be. I can’t think of another tree of its hardiness that is so bright and colourful in winter. Those bare stems covered in red fruit against a blue sky backdrop truly are a natural wonder.
Hollies (Ilex spp.) must be among the best known berrying plants of all, but they’re not always spiny, nor are they always evergreen. What’s more, they don’t always have red berries. The pity is, though, that many nurseries and garden centres don’t stock much of a range. Search around and you may find some of the more interesting types, but don’t be too disappointed if you can’t.
The various Mahonia species
have holly-like foliage and flower mainly in the autumn. The flowers are most
commonly yellow and followed by sprays of purple-blue berries. The Chinese
Holly Grape (M. lomariifolia) is the best known, with an appearance
that lives up to its common name. Large clumps need occasional cutting back and
thinning.
Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina domestica) doesn’t always set fruit, so for berries choose one of the hermaphrodite cultivars such as ‘Richmond’ or ‘Firepower’. They’ll provide bright red berries in autumn and the foliage will continue the colour through winter.
Crab-apples (Malus).
Apple blossom is beautiful, crab-apples are colourful, so
you can’t lose here. But as with hollies, local growers supply but a fraction
of the range that gardeners in North America or Europe have access to. More cultivars have
become available in recent years but they haven’t been much promoted and may
fail to take off for lack of awareness.
The ubiquitous Firethorn (Pyracantha) cultivars must be among
the top-selling berrying plants. And not by accident, but
because they’re so reliable and easy-going. Apart from a few fungal
problems, the thing they most often suffer from is neglect. Treated well, few
others can match them or are nearly as adaptable.
That the Pepper Tree (Schinus ariera var. molle)
bears dangling panicles of
red-brown fruit is not always a welcome fact. Sometimes the seeds within can
germinate only too well. But even so, this graceful tree has a place in gardens,
especially those near the coast. I find the colour of the berries very
appealing, and they’re carried in a way very much in keeping with the weeping
habit of the foliage.
Skimmia japonica is a neat, compact, evergreen
shrub that’s well worth growing for its foliage alone, but add in a
brilliant crop of red berries and you have a first-rate garden plant. Only
female plants bear fruit, but one male can pollinate quite a few females.
The common Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) has orange-red
or yellow berries that mature quite early, as befits a plant from a cold climate.
Other species ripens later. As a tree I’m particularly fond of the Whitebeam
(S. aria), but I have to admit that its fruiting is only rarely
spectacular. The Himalayan S. cashmeriana and Chinese S. hupehensis
have more interesting fruit that is white or white with a deep pink blush.
Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is well-known for its white fruit but I find it a rather wiry, unattractive shrub. Our native Mountain Snowberry (Gaultheria depressa var. novae-zelandiae) is a much nicer little plant with berries just as white. The trouble is it doesn’t do wonderfully well in gardens. So go and see it in the wild and while you’re there look out for the red berries of Patotara (Leucopogon fraseri).
Chilean Guava (Ugni molinae) is not a guava at all but a myrtle-like evergreen shrub. It has
attractive pale pink flowers in spring followed by aromatic red fruit from late
summer. The fruit is edible and make a distinctively scented if rather bland
jelly.
Viburnum is most commonly grown for its often-scented flowers, but many of the species follow up those blooms with berries. My favourite, probably my all-time
favourite berrying shrub, is the Cranberry Viburnum (V. trilobum)
with its translucent sealing-wax red fruit. I also really enjoy the steel-blue
berries of V. davidii and the red of V. japonicum,
both of which are evergreen shrubs, unlike V. trilobum.
Palms often produce masses of fruit and it's sometimes very
colourful. Although you’re unlikely to grow a palm for its fruit alone, it’s a bonus
that’s well worth having.
Success with ornamental fruiting plants — getting the best out of them over a long time
— demands care with planning and attention to their requirements. Do take the
trouble to double check that the plants you choose are suitable for where you
intend to grow them. There’s little point in planting a crab-apple, for
example, without allowing enough room for ti to mature. You’ll only continually
be cutting it back and removing the flowers or the fruit. In general, fruiting
plants are best grown where they can be left alone as much as possible. In this
case garden indolence has rewards, provided you plan ahead.
Copyright Geoff Bryant
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