Birds Love The Berries Of A Bayberry Shrub

The Myrtle Warbler, or the western counterpart, Audubon’s warbler, is the most abundant warbler and wanders farther north than any other. It breeds throughout northern coniferous woodlands, showing preference for the more open stands and borders of clearings. In migration, myrtles occur everywhere and are especially abundant in brushy areas, hedgerows, field borders, gardens and weedy tangles.

Although most of these warblers spend their winter in the southern part of the United States and range as far as northern South America, a large number come to rest in our northern states and remain there for the cold weather.

The myrtle warbler is one of the few warblers that can subsist for long periods upon berries and seeds, though undoubtedly it prefers insects when it can get them. Along the shores of large bodies of water during the winter, many flies rise from the seaweed in sheltered spots on mild days, even in January. There are also eggs of plant lice and some hibernating insects to be found on trees and shrubs.

But the principal food of the myrtle warbler during the inclement season is the bayberry bush. So delighted by these berries their travels seem to be largely dependent by the failure or success of the bayberry crop. The "wax" of this fruit is chemically a true fat, hence digestible and heat-productive.

Unfortunately, now that thousands of European starlings remain on our sea-coasts for the winter, the bayberries are devoured earlier in the season than would be the case were the berries left to the native birds alone. We may expect the wintering myrtles gradually to disappear from our coastal regions if the starlings continue to increase at their present rate. Therefore, any planting of bayberry shrubs by home owners and gardeners not only enhances esthetic values but also aids in conservation.

The bayberry, sometimes called wax-myrtle or candleberry, Myrica pensylcanica, is a fine ornamental noted for its aromatic semi-evergreen foliage and attractive fruit. It grows well in sandy and poor soils and tolerates salt spray.

The northern variety grows to a height of about 9 feet, while the southern form, Myrica cerifera, becomes a small tree. The latter prefers moist and peaty soils. In both varieties, the sexes are separate so that pistillate and staminate flowering plants must be grown, in close proximity to insure production of the very ornamental, grayish white berries. They remain on the plant for several seasons.

If the berries are boiled, the wax will melt from the fruit and come to the surface. This can then be cooled and skimmed over to be used for making bayberry candles, which give off a pleasant odor as they burn. In early American homes the boiled roots produced a tea for headaches; while the bark was used for poultices and for jaundice. The Scottish people use the leaves for brewing in place of hops.

Bayberries make handsome shrubs for our gardens, are excellent material for interior decorating and arrangements, and serve as food for over 90 species of birds.

Additional Bayberry Info & Flower Gardening Tips

Attracting Bluebirds

The Connecticut Botanical Society lists many of these plus mountain laurel, bayberry, rosebay, some azaleas, fragrant sumac, high bush blueberry, plus others.

Garden Design, Perennial Flower Gardening, Gardening Tips

Garden Design, Perrenial Flower Gardening, Gardening Tips. One miniature ornamental shrub that I will be adding to my plant assortment next season is in the Barberry family. Berberis shrubs are dense and thorny, with foliage in the red to purple shades. Some gardeners use them as hedge plants.

Larry’s Photo A Day: Barberry Shrub

I took this photo about a month ago of my barberry bush. It really has quite a nice pattern of various colors. On the color wheel that would be called an analogous color scheme.

Winter’s Cold Wind Needn’t End Garden’s Enjoyment

Barberry and bayberry drop their leaves in the winter, but both have showy berries; reddish-orange egg-shaped on barberry and a waxy gray green fruit on bayberry.

Winter Resistant Plants And Shrubs

If you are looking for a winter resistant shrub with fruit that won’t attract the deer throughout the seasons, the bayberry shrub is an excellent choice. For those homeowners who enjoy birds munching in the spring, summer and fall.

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Among the broad-leaved evergreens which hold places of high esteem as garden subjects, several species of the Asiatic genus photinia command particular attention. Chinese photinia (P. serrulata) is the best of these generally available for areas of moderate climate. At least three others introduced by E. H. Wilson were highly regarded in their native land and it is unfortunate that after so many years they are not better known here.

Photinias are limited in their natural distribution to the Japanese islands and eastern Asia. These plants have much in common with shadbushes and chokeberries, and their brilliant fruits carried in rounded panicles show close relationship to mountain-ashes. Another close relative is the popular toyon or Christmas-berry of California. The best known deciduous species, P. villosa, has been widely planted in Europe and North America, and it is not at all uncommon to find volunteer seedlings establishing themselves in many districts. Although a vigorous and attractive subject, this shrub has no marked advantages over the deciduous cousins noted above nor over the many fine stranvaesia or ornamental crabapples.

This is far from the case with Photinia serrulata, however. When one thinks of adding lustrous evergreen leaves with rich coppery red and pink tones in spring to the well-known beauties of shadbushes and crabapples, the prospect is exciting indeed. A British East India Company captain brought the first plants of Chinese photinia back with him from Canton in 1804. Within a few years Captain Kirkpatrick’s prize had become very popular and was fairly well distributed among gardening enthusiasts.

Shoots and young leaves of this plant command immediate attention because of their striking reddish coloration: buds, petioles and midribs usually retain this effect. The leaves are more or less oblong, from 4 to 8 inches long and with finely toothed margins, as the scientific name indicates. Oddly enough, although the leaves are evergreen and usually remain on the branchlets through the winter and even for several months longer in mild areas, they often show fine autumn coloration in tones of pink, something after the fashion of Carolina rhododendrons.

In earliest spring, even in March in Florida, Texas and Georgia, terminal buds expand into graceful rounded panicles, with many branches eventually measuring up to 6 inches across. Jewel-like flower buds open to show five petals and 20 delicate stamens at the center. Though less than half an inch across individually, these delicate flowers are showy because of their numbers as well as their setting lustrous evergreen foliage.

Berry-like fruits about 1/4 inch across mature during the summer and standout with increasing effectiveness as they turn bright red in the autumn. Their beauty and excellent lasting qualities in early winter have led to the name Christmas-berry being applied occasionally to this species, although this should be reserved for the relative found in California.

Chinese photinias have the reputation of growing best near large bodies of water, and this may be one reason for their popularity along the Pacific Coast. In the eastern states, it is doubtful they can be depended on farther north than Cape Cod, even near the coast, and plantings north of Maryland should be made with special care. It is interesting to note that a fine 8- to 10- foot specimen has been famous on Long Island, and several of about half this stature can be found in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

After you buy, a warm loamy soil and a situation offering protection from winds are the first things to look for in selecting a location for these photinias. Temperatures much below 5 degrees Fahrenheit for any length of time will cause damage unless the setting has been selected to bring about thorough ripening of growth towards middle or late summer. Dryness of the soil will accomplish this effectively, and yet, if foliage is to remain rich and lustrous, moisture must be fairly constant through autumn and winter. Plants should be set out only in early spring, with every encouragement to promote extensive root and shoot growth in May and June but a gradual tapering off by midsummer.

In most situations these shrubs are best grown as rounded specimens with many stems from the ground. In mild sections where winter injury is rarely a factor they can be developed as small trees with a single trunk. Striking foliage effects, in addition to attractive flowers and fruits, make these photinias feature subjects. Specimens can be used for accent and variety in border plantings framing a lawn or formal garden picture. They are also appropriate near large buildings where the transitions from one stage to another can be watched from windows and porches throughout the year.

Appropriate companion subjects include flowering cherries, camellias, magnolias and other first-rank garden favorites. It is also difficult to surpass the effect of a photinia or two in a grouping with fine specimens of pines and other tree conifers.

Pruning Red Tip Photinias

More On Photinias

Photinia Pink Marble

In recent years we’ve all got used to those photinias with their bright red young growth. They’re evergreen, vigorous, easy to grow, and colourful.

Japanese Photinia in Autumn

I took this photo today. These small trees are Japanese Photinia. It is popular as hedge. Those red ( not green ) leaves are fresh leaves. ( Colour of the leaf turns to green from red ).

Photinia Red Robin Leaf Spot – How To Keep It Under Control

Photinia Red Robin Leaf Spot can be unsightly but there is no need to use chemicals – follow our tips and keep the spots at bay.

Photinia

I love this shrub – it has lovely green leaves that change to russety brown and little clusters of white flowers in spring. I would like another one to put somewhere else in the garden too but we are running out of room!

Red-tipped Photinia X Fraseri And Photinia Serrulata

Also, siting photinia where air circulation is best helps (though that doesn’t help your already-huge shrubs, does it?) This means not planting them too close to each other, as is often done to create hedges.

As we continue to provide information on flower gardening for beginners and flower gardening tips on a variety of flowering plants like the Photinia please let us know of any other topics you may be interested in.

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Why FALL Planting?

Experienced gardeners prefer fall planting. Not for all plants, but for a great many that the beginner seldom thinks of setting out except in spring.

Unless you are in a very cold section of the country, roses planted in fall take hold better than do spring-set bushes. So do most fruit trees and bushes, other deciduous trees and shrubs and many evergreens. The majority of hardy perennials, too, respond best when moved in autumn rather than in spring.

Fall planting is advantageous to the gardener too. Over most of North America spring is short, its days all too crowded.

Despite carefully made plans and the best intentions, it is usually physically impossible to accomplish all the planting and other work that needs doing. This is true if you do the work yourself; it is so if you hire professional help.

 In the mad rush of spring, skilled Gardeners and nurserymen seem to be almost as scarce as the proverbial hen’s tooth, and if you succeed in corralling one (or more), chances are he will be so rushed that your planting may be done less carefully than had you employed him at a more leisurely season.

But plantwise, why is fall the best time to set out most material? The first point to recognize is that the operation we call planting is actually transplanting. It consists of moving a living plant from one place to another in such a fashion that it will become reestablished.

Such transplanting is an artificial disturbance. In nature it occurs rarely, as when a tornado or swollen stream rips a plant from its anchorage and sets it some place else, where it takes root. But these are freak accidents. Plants usually spend their entire lives in the place where nature propagated them.

Transplanting is analogous to an operation on a human being. Parts of the body are cut away, the physiological processes disturbed. Common sense dictates that an operation should he done at a time most favorable to the patient, at the beginning of a period when recuperation is likely to take place most rapidly and when no undue demands are expected to be made upon the patient’s energies. For most plants, fall meets these conditions best.

Let’s examine the reasons why this is so. The above-ground parts of a plant depend upon the roots for water and nutrients, and to find them, roots often travel much greater distances than ordinarily supposed. A lowly perennial may send some of its feeders down 2, 3 or even more feet, and the spread of these feeders almost invariably far exceeds that of the foliage. In the case of trees and shrubs, too, the underground parts usually occupy more space then the stems and leaves.

It follows that no matter how carefully transplanting is done, some roots are cut off and the plant’s ability to supply its stems and leaves with water and nutrients is temporarily reduced. In fall, with its shorter days, lower temperatures, less intense sunshine and in many cases normal loss of foliage, the demands for water and nutrients made by the tops of hardy plants are at a near minimum and decrease as day follows day. This is a significant factor.

Roots of fall transplants are able to continue growth long after top growth has ceased, because the ground beneath remains warm and moist even after the upper inch or two is frozen. Therefore, new roots, generate readily from the cut and broken ends of transplants, enabling them to rapidly re-establish their root systems.

Contrast this with conditions that prevail in spring. Then all factors that favor vigorous top growth (with its resulting heavier demands upon the roots) are at work. Days are lengthening, the sun strengthening. Winds are stealing water from every stem and leaf. And as the leaves increase in size and number, the demand for water and nutrients increases correspondingly.

Are there any disadvantages to fall planting? Yes, in some cases there’s danger of winterkilling. Winter is the crucial period for plants on the border-line of hardiness in any given locality, plants which are so close to being tender and winterkilled anyway that the root disturbance tips the balance against them.

For such plants spring transplanting is safer, because in order to survive the winter, these borderline plants need a fully established root system. Planted in spring, they have a whole growing season in which to re-root before being called upon to face the rigors of winter.

Transplanting done too late for the particular plant type may also result in winterkilling. In such cases there simply is not sufficient time for adequate rooting before the under soil becomes too cold.

Then, too, heaving (soil movement due to alternate freezing and thawing) can tear and break roots, and with smallish items, such as rock garden plants and perennials, this may cause so much damage that serious harm or death results. However, precautions can be taken to minimize this danger.

On the negative side, one other factor must be taken into account. Experience has proved that a few plants transplant better in spring (preferably late spring) than in fall. These include some subjects with more or less fleshy roots, such as magnolias and beeches. If you have any doubts about a particular plant, check with an experienced gardener.

The actual operation of transplanting is the same whether done in fall or spring. Only the details of after care differ. Regardless of season, the soil must be deeply and thoroughly prepared and should be in a crumbly rather than pasty condition.

Preparation ordinarily involves loosening the earth to a depth of 10 inches or more, mixing in a generous amount of organic matter (compost, leafmold, rotted manure, peatmoss or commercial humus) and some fertilizer.

In fall, use only slowly available fertilizers such as coarse bonemeal, pulverized sheep manure or prepared mixtures that have much of their nitrogen content in organic form. The quickly soluble, rapid-acting kinds are more advantageous in spring, for these serve chiefly to stimulate leaf growth, which is not of immediate importance in fall. For certain plants, some soils will need liming. And in some cases, the use of a synthetic soil conditioner may be advisable.

The details of preparing the soil depend upon the particular plants to be set out. In any case, see that the preparation is thorough and, if possible, have it completed well in advance of planting. This gives the earth time to settle somewhat and makes firm planting at the right depth easier.

If you must plant before the soil has settled sufficiently by itself, either tread it until moderately firm (while it is dry enough not to stick to the shoes) or give it a thorough soaking with the hose and then allow it to dry. Either treatment will settle it enough for planting.

The old admonition that it’s better to put a 10-cent plant in a dollar hole than a dollar plant in a 10-cent hole still holds. For every plant you install, make a hole sufficiently large to easily accommodate the ball of roots without crowding and to permit you to pack a liberal amount of good soil around the old roots to encourage growth of new ones.

This is especially important with trees, shrubs and evergreens planted where the entire surrounding soil is not specially prepared, as it usually is with herbaceous plants and closely set shrubs. For a moderate-sized shrub or tree, the role should be at least 2 feet wider than the spread of the roots… more if the soil is poorand more when big specimens are being moved.

One of the great advantages of fall planting is that purchased nursery stock is then newly dug. It has not been wintered in a nursery cellar or storage shed as have most spring-sold plants.

Take care when planting not to let the roots become dry. If the specimens are moved with a ball of soil, as evergreens always should be and larger trees and shrubs often are, be sure, not to break it.

Spread the roots of plants that are moved without a soil ball in the directions in which they run naturally and work good soil between them. Set the plants at the same depth or only very slightly deeper than they were previously. Firm the soil well, but do not ram it until it is as hard as a road. Unless rain is imminent, soak the soil immediately after planting and keep well watered.

Secure fall-planted trees firmly to stakes or guy wires to prevent winter storms from loosening or toppling them over. Deciduous shrubs rarely need staking, but it is often good to prune back or thin out some of the branches. Evergreens (both shrubs and trees) will appreciate a burlap screen if they are exposed to wind or strong winter sun.

Very important, too, is the subject of winter protection. For most plants, a mulch 1 or 2 inches deep (3 or 4 inches for evergreens) spread over the ground after it has frozen will delay frost penetration to greater depths and enable roots to grow for a longer period. A mulch will also reduce heaving.

Suitable materials are coarse compost, half-rotted leaves, manure, straw and peat-moss. A mulch of this type, however, is not practicable for ground-hugging plants such as strawberries and many rock garden subjects, which require a light covering of salt hay or evergreen branches. Perennials, too, prefer the latter type mulch.

Roses require a little different kind of winter protection. After the top inch of earth has frozen, bill the soil high around the bases of the stems to protect the lower buds, and fill the hollows between the hills with loose manure or some other mulch material.

Let’s take a look now at the best fall planting times for the different plant types. Evergreens should go in first. These have to support a crop of leaves all winter and so need plenty of time to develop ample roots. Deciduous trees and shrubs, excepting those few kinds that move better in spring, may be safely planted considerably later than evergreens. Put them in any time between the start of natural leaf fall and the first hard ground freeze.

Roses should be planted as soon as obtainable, and planting may continue until frost makes it impracticable. Perennials and biennials should be planted as soon as possible after the first killing frost to enable them to root well before the soil freezes.

 

Planting In Autumn

 

More Tips For Fall Gardening

How To Naturalize Spring-Flowering Bulbs

Of these, only spring-blooming bulbs absolutely must be planted in fall. This “now or never” push makes fall bulb planting an annual tradition in many households, where spending an hour or two each fall can reap colorful spring time bulbs.

Fall Work Makes Spring Planting Easier

Crisp autumn days make you want to drink hot chocolate and sit by a warming fire. I’ll join you, but first we have a few things to do to be ready for spring gardening. (Did you really think I was done giving you things to do?)

5 Tips for Fall Gardening

If you’re ready to take the organic gardening plunge, we have some great tips for you from the experts at Bonnie Plants, a green-gardening wholesaler in Union Springs, AL: Don’t be intimidated.

Fall Gardening Tasks

Pruning chores are easier in fall as the leaves drop. But be certain to only prune away dead or diseased wood – if you prune healthy wood, it will spur new growth that will become damaged by winter cold.

 

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