Berry-Bearing Shrubs 
Berry-Bearing Shrubs 
Those best suited to enliven the Fall and Winter 
Garden with color of Berries and Bark 
BY MARIE VON TSCHUDI PRICE 
PART II 
(Continued from the July issue.) 
I N making a selection of shrubs that bear berries throughout 
the storms of autumn and the stress of winter care must be 
taken to make a judicious selection. The numerous genera 
and species are temptingly beautiful, luring one to lavish expendi¬ 
ture, and if one is not cautious and canny such temporary aberra¬ 
tion will result in an exhibition of bad taste to be regretted later. 
A garish effect of color is often the outcome of inharmonious and 
promiscuous planting and to apply a quotation from Oliver Wen¬ 
dell Holmes, this brilliancy spoils the landscape picture “as a 
diamond breastpin sometimes kills the social effect of the wearer 
who might otherwise have passed for a gentleman without it.” 
Berry-bearing shrubs for large groups should be massed for a 
single color effect rather than for a great variety of colors or in¬ 
dividual heauty will be lost in hopeless confusion. Shrubs with 
different colored berries are planted to better effect in small groups 
where the red fruit of one variety sets off the black or the blue fruit 
of others. Here the old saying of “two’s company and three’s a 
crowd” is conspicuously verified while four varieties of berry shrubs 
in the same group end in a riot. 
A striking hedge of two colors may be made by combining the 
snowberry, one of the honeysuckle family, with the Japanese rose, 
Rosa rugosa. The red haws of the rose are as ornamental 
in autumn as its flowers in June, remaining on the branches through 
the winter. I have seen them as late as the middle of April 
in New Jersey and although the snowberry was more of a favorite 
in old-fashioned gardens where stately belles and bejewelled beaus 
admired it, than now, it has always been of interest to gardeners 
and is a most worthy dapper little shrub to cultivate anywhere. 
Its white and pink flowers are inconspicuous and soon round out 
into snowy spheres, strung on slender stems. These stand not on a 
regular order of growing but scatter themselves in lavish luxuriance 
among the glossy leaves, like large pearls on green enamel and 
there is also an attractive dwarf species (Symphoricarpus Heyeri) 
which has snow white berries somewhat smaller. The botanical 
name of the genus (s ymphoric ar pus) is a picture word that tells of 
the snowberries’ crowded fruit and the shrubs must not be over 
cultivated for it or their dainty grace will be lost. The common 
snowberry is the pale faced brother of the Indian currant or coral- 
berry. 
They both grow to about the same height and the fruit 
of the latter is marvelously abundant. A group or bed of the 
Indian currant makes an enchanting picture; for in autumn the 
shrubs become a mass of drooping stems, adorned with leaves and 
dark crimson berries that are beautiful enough to be garlanded by 
some sylvan god and carried in a great Pan festival that will move to 
the music of the pipes he has made from the elder, a European 
species belonging to this same idyllic family of shrubs, which may 
be cultivated with good effect near it. The red fruit clings to the 
Indian currant undismayed, while autumnal blasts send its brown- 
curled leaves scurrying away into the anywhere, as if to say “ j’y 
reste ” and here they do remain to the delight of gods and men, 
for the birds will have none of them. 
Still harping on the honeysuckle family I would most heartily 
recommend the scarlet-berried elder, both for its white orna¬ 
mental flowers, which open early and for its great clusters of 
berries that, becoming a brilliant scarlet, make the shrub one 
glorious mass of red and as this rich-colored display comes early in 
the season before the dark-berried, wild-gypsy elders have even 
bloomed, this variety of elder ( Sambucus pubens ) should also be 
cultivated with those of later fruiting shrubs if one wishes a 
continuous picture of colored fruits. One would need the harp of a 
thousand strings to sing the praises of all the shrubs that bear 
beautiful berries, for their infinite charm lends itself to tonal as well 
as word pictures in black and white and I am sure no finer motif 
could be found for a lyric symphony than that suggested by the 
viburnums. 
I he different varieties, both the deciduous and the ever¬ 
green, are highly ornamental, but many of them are well known 
and too numerous to mention other than those handsome in fruit. 
1 he sheepberry ( V. lentago), better known perhaps as nannyberry 
and sweet viburnum, and the rusty nannyberry (F. rufidulum), 
not so well known, are both distinguished in appearance and bear 
blue-black and bright blue berries respectively, hanging from 
coral-red stems. They seem to have been created simply to be 
beautiful, for beauty is their chief merit and no season finds them 
unattractive. Their fruit is eaten by the birds and some consider 
them good to eat if one is hungry, but it does not seem worth while 
to cultivate the nannyberries that beauty may wait on appetite, 
where there are so many luscious fruits to tempt it, and as the 
present generation is not catering to the cuisine of the North Amer¬ 
ican Indian who prizes them as a delicacy, these shrubs will have 
to depend on their beauty, just simple ornamental beauty, to 
recommend them. Another viburnum of larger habit and with a 
bolder, more striking beauty than those I have just mentioned is 
the black haw ( V. prumfolium). Most conspicuous in May, when 
its blossoms seem trying to outrival those of the apple-tree, its 
lavish bloom makes it an effective and desirable species for a lawn. 
In the autumn, when the glory of its blossoms has fled, it bears 
an abundance of blue-black clusters of berries that, mingling with 
the reddish bronze tints of the foliage, give it a conspicuous beauty 
all its own and revives the interest that often lags between its flower¬ 
ing and its fruiting time. The twigs are reddish in winter and the 
black haw is often cultivated in American and European parks and 
gardens for its decorative qualities and its persistent edible fruit, 
being also known as the stag-bush and the sloe. The withe-rod 
(F. cassinoides), with its thick lanceolate leaves and its rose-colored 
fruit, is an attractive shrub to plant in a group with V. dentatum 
that has blue berries towards the close of summer, and among the 
most ornamental of fruit bearing viburnums are V. opulus, 
dilattum and fFrightn. These bear brilliant red berries which 
remain on the branches quite late and are resplendent in autumnal 
purple and crimson foliage, V. opulus and acerifolium being the 
most conspicuous. Most of the viburnums are particular as to 
soil and position, preferring moisture and sunshine, though there 
are some that grow well under the shade of trees even in rocky, 
dry soil and for this trait are excellent shrubs for groups which 
include trees of branching habit. They thrive in any temperate 
and warm climate and are adaptable and hardy. 
A genus of shrubs little known and not largely culti¬ 
vated, though it is a valuable addition to a list of decorative berry- 
bearers, is the Elceagnus or oleaster. 1 he_different varieties are 
conspicuous for their silvery-white foliage which seems to cling 
to them as a frosty souvenir of their former sub-arctic habitat. 
The silver-berry, a native of the far West, has fragrant flowers and 
edible berries and the buffalo-berry another species is known in 
various localities as rabbit-berry, beef-suet-berry and grains-de- 
boeuf. The latter is grown profusely in the western parts of 
America for its acidulous, currant-like fruit but in the regions where 
the currant is cultivated the buffalo-berry is only prized for its 
ornamental qualities. As it is more or less of a prickly nature 
it is suitable for hedges and is a most interesting shrub that takes 
kindly to Eastern gardens. Remarkable for the silvery luster 
of its leaves, it also bears a scarlet-crimson fruit, so abundant as 
to redden the entire bush and seldom does a shrub exhibit such 
strong contrasts of color in foliage and fruit. There are other of 
these charming shrubs that bear yellow fruit, a Japanese variety 
(E. longipes) one of the handsomest in shining foliage and red 
silver-dotted fruit, and Elceagnus hortensis swell the list of these 
dazzling shrubs in fruit and leaf. Like Elceagnus longipes the 
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