Berry good show
Autumnal berries bring colour to your garden and are great for attracting wildlife too
Berries are good for attracting birds, bringing a bit of autumnal colour and brightening up evergreens once deciduous leaves have dropped.
But there is a lot more to them than just red, yellow or orange, so why not splash out on the full painter’s palette?
Take pink, for example. Gaultheria mucronata has several good examples from the iridescent, pale pink “Mother of Pearl” and lavender pink “Lilian” to the deep crushed strawberry of “Mulberry Wine”.
They are neat, compact evergreen shrubs that need chalk-free soil, although a tub of ericaceous compost does the trick if your garden soil is not suitable. Grow male and female plants together as one lucky chap can cope with five or so “wives”.
Or how about a touch of blue? Viburnum davidii has the most intense turquoise berries held in bunches above compact dome-shaped evergreen plants with large leathery leaves. You need several plants close together for cross-pollination.
For a special place, a real stunner is clerodendrum trichotomum “Fargesii” a large shrub or small tree with heavily scented white flowers in July and
August that gradually give way to turquoise berries. They sit in little maroon cups and persist until after the plant sheds its leaves in autumn.
Or have you thought about purple? A little gem of a climber called Billardiera longiflora is a real star for the trellis in a warm, sheltered spot. It has narrow foliage and tiny green bells for flowers in summer, then in late summer and autumn the whole plant is completely covered with large, purple berries.
Leycesteria formosa, the pheasant berry, has long, dangling bunches of jaunty magenta bracts dotted with mauve berries. It is literally a bird-puller and gets its common name from the fact it
was once planted in game coverts. But I wonder whether that was more for its lax evergreen canes that birds could shelter under from the rain rather than the supposed food value of its berries – I have yet to see a pheasant tucking in.
Violet is also a possibility. Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii “Profusion” makes a mediumsized shrub that throws everything it has at autumn.
Lilac flowers in late summer are followed by clusters of small bead-like berries of almost exactly the same colour, which cling to the bare stems for a while after the purple-tinted autumn leaves have fallen.
White berries may look a touch wintry but they have one lasting benefit – the birds mostly leave them until last, in the hope that they will ripen.
Some Gaultheria mucronata cultivars have white berries, as do several kinds of symphoricarpos, but one of the longest lasting is Sorbus cashmiriana, which hangs on to its berries until well into January.
Birds always get their berries in the end, but if you are not bothered about your stock, it is worth putting in Viburnum lantana and opulus, Rhamnus frangula and some mountain ash.
Then sit back and watch the fun emerge.