Backyard Nature Wednesday: Two beautyberries

I have two varieties of beautyberry in my garden.

The purple variety, which is the kind that is seen in Nature.

And a white cultivar.

Now, in past years, I have found that the birds in my yard generally wait until a bit later to start hitting the beautyberries for their daily snacks. They would usually exhaust the softer elderberries and the pokeberries which I also have in my garden before they started on the beautyberries. The beautyberry is a harder fruit and it will last longer on the shrub, right into winter. That's mostly when I've noticed birds eating them in past years. But this must be a particularly delicious year for these berries because the birds are already devouring them with great relish.

Also, in the past, the birds usually started with the white berries and stripped all of them before they moved on to the purple. Not this year. They are showing a distinct preference for the purple. Mockingbirds, robins, cardinals, grackles, even wrens and chickadees have been observed eating them. So far, I haven't noticed a single bird eating the white berries.

But they sure love the purple ones! Especially the mockingbirds.

And the robins.

I don't think these berries are going to last until winter this year.

Backyard Nature Wednesday: Beautyberry

The berries which give beautyberry its name, photographed in my garden this week.

Beautyberry is well-named. Those shiny berries that develop in late summer and early fall on the 3-5 foot tall shrubs are indeed very attractive, both to humans and to birds which love to feast on them.

In fact, I am sure that all the purple-berried beautyberries in my yard were planted by birds - birds who either pooped out the seeds from the berries or dropped them in flight. I do have several of these native shrubs from the verbena family, because, generally, if possible, I just leave them alone and let them grow where they are planted.

Historically, Native Americans made a tea from the leaves and roots of American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), sometimes called French mulberry, which they used for sweat baths for rheumatism, fevers, and malaria. A root tea was used for dysentery and stomach aches. Root and berry teas were used for colic.

The plant is very valuable in a native plant landscape because it attracts birds and butterflies. In areas where deer are a nuisance, unfortunately, it also attracts them.

For gardeners looking for a carefree shrub to add to their gardens, this could be the answer to their dreams. Once established, it requires virtually no maintenance. The only thing I ever do for mine is to prune them back when they get too big for their space. They can be pruned severely before new growth starts in the spring to control the plant's size, and they can be pruned throughout the growing season if they need to be shaped or the size further controlled.

In addition to the more familiar purple-berried plant, there is a white-berried variety which I also have in my garden. The white berries, for whatever reason, seem to be even more attractive to the birds in my yard. They will strip this shrub of its berries before moving on to the purple berries.

The shrubs are deciduous and so are not especially attractive in winter and sometimes during prolonged droughts, as we are prone to have in Texas, they will lose some leaves and the fruit may not develop properly. But, in my backyard, for three seasons of the year, they are an attractive and valuable addition to my habitat garden.