Beauty Berry/French Mulberry is getting pretty

I love this bush gotta trim it back this year but the thing is so beautiful.

That is awesome LavinaMae.

I agree Lavina, that is pretty. This is my first year with beautyberries. I have 2 that are quite young, but one is putting out blooms now too, not fully in color yet but getting there.

Molly
:^)))

Beautiful!!! Too bad they won't survive our winters. I love them!

billy i have one that is two now and doing lovely berries... you could try it... bear in mind it leafs out kinda late so if you do try it wat till end of may to give up

Billy want some seeds to try? I have plenty. will send free so you can see. Let me know

Lavina

Lavinia does your s make plants from seed ? ive not seen any babies around mine .
taya

Yelp I have a few every year to pop up where the birds have taken the seeds somewhere.
I never have any small plants around mine tho.

Lavina

billyporter Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion' is hardy to zone 4, Callicarpa americana and C. japonica are hardy to zone 5, as is C. dichotoma, according to the AHS Northeast SmartGarden Regional Guide. This very much surprised me, but I just double checked, after seeing a gorgeous specimen of C. dichotoma on campus (in Joliet, IL). Upon further research, it's grown as a "cutback shrub", that is, one treated as a herbaceous perennial and cut back to 6" in late winter. It blooms on new wood. Or you can try it in a protected location. For best fruit set, it's suggested that you plant more than one. I have not seen it in flower, but it's striking in fruit. The branches arch like an itea. This is definitely on my wish list. :0)

OK who ever wants seeds let me know.

Lavina

I would love to have some. Send me a dmail if you have enough

I'll be happy to give it a try! I love the berries!

Lavina,
May I send a SASBE for some of your seeds?
JoAnn

Everyone d-mail me and they are yours. I have lots

Lavina

I have lots myself!

wow, they look like candy.

They do look sort of like the purple rock sugar on a stick (if that's the correct name). My bush is so loaded the limbs are dragging the ground. It's about 7ft tall and wide.

frausnow just send address.
escambiaguy yelp thats it I just need to cut mine back. I usually keep it about 4 or 5 feet round but have let it get out of hand.

Lavina

Looking for an update from all you Beautyberry lovers out there. Who has photos of what is germinating from seed right now?

Molly! Yours are going to be blooming soon! Will you please post photos?

Funny you should mention this. Just yesterday when I was out pruning, trimming etc, I saw my Beautyberry is coming back from the winter cold. Have some new buds on it and will post pictures soon.

Molly
:^)))

Funny that this thread was bumped up, I just was looking for recommended pruning times this week! I have two new additions and this will be my first spring with them.

Didn't start from seed like some in this discussion but last fall...

I drive by this house that has the most beautiful garden on a small lot. There is an arching shrub with a distinct leaf pattern and what I thought were purple flowers (as I am driving by... concentrating on driving!!!). I kept thinking, I have to stop and knock on this person's door and ask what this plant is, but I didn't.

Out of the blue I found these shrubs at a local nursery that I had never noticed before and was IN LOVE with the brilliant color of the berries. The very next day I am driving to breakfast and I practically screeched to a stop in the middle of the road looking at the little cottage garden ... BERRIES! They were not purple flowers but they are BERRIES and I just bought two of the same plants I had admired so much without even knowing it!!!

Anyhoo, I pruned them down this week to keep them from growing too massive. I've heard that it also helps produce more berries too which would be a bonus but I'm not sure how that works. Would love to know more about them.

Sue

Hahaha, Sue, we posted almost verbatim the same first words here.

I waited until I was pretty sure last frost was past before doing any pruning of anything. I'm pretty new at seasonal temperature changes so am learning all this for the first time.

(I moved up from zone 10b in winter of 2005.)

Molly
:^))))

I love Callicarpa americana (Beautyberry). I ordered three for this season. They will be my very first. I'm really excited.

As a rule of thumb it's generally ok to prune while a plant is dormant. I believe Callicarpa blooms on new wood anyway.

Neat little plant offer I found on line-
http://www.mgonlinestore.com/Beautyberry/

I cut my big one back about two weeks ago. The berries made the branches droop so low it was difficult to mow around it.

I still have a few extra seeds from last year if anyone wants any.

Lavina

Lovely shrub with the berries in winter, but the leaves are rather drab and 'ordinary' - that's the main reason I've never got one. The ones in the photo above (2 posts up) look decidedly brown and withered, not something I'd want in the garden in August.

Resin

Callicarpa dichotoma, and really every Callicarpa I have tried, are a slam dunk from cuttings. You can have a nice 1 gal in a season.

'Profusion' is an awkward creature with strange form, IMHO.

I prune mine this time of year. Then when the new growth is about 12" tall, I pinch back all of the shoots. That keeps it from "falling out" in the center.

My white beautyberry from seed seems to have made it through the winter in the cold frame...supposed to be true from seed 90% of the time....hoping for fruit and cuttings this year.

Pic from 11-8-03

What a lovely shrub! Pretty and a bonus for the birds. I live in Maryland which seems to be the northern edge of where beauty berry / callicarpa americana is said to grow. Any suggestions as to where I should purchase a plant? Should I get 2 or will 1 do well by itself? Would mail order be best or should I try my local large nursery? Your photos are fantastic!

I just sowed seed Sunday. Crossing fingers they sprout. I saved some back for a second try.

That last photo says November, maybe that's why it looks "brown and withered"? I have found that they do best with morning sun and afternoon shade though. If you put them in full sun, be prepared to give them extra water during the summer to keep them looking their best.

I would be careful with this further south. This is from PlantFiles for C. americana.

I'm only 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and I think it's far from being a weed or invasive here. I've never had to fight it. LOL

That's good, it's pretty well-behaved around these parts as well, I just thought I'd throw that out there for anyone who is concerned about these things. I really don't think I even notice them unless they have the berries on them.

Doing an internet search for Callicarpa americana, doesn't bring me up any thing that says the plant is invasive in the south. It does however, give this plant as an alternative for such plants as the Berberis thunbergii.

Its been in our yard over 20 years and invasive it is not. Or at least mine isn't I have had to grow and plant it to spread it anywhere.

Lavina

Callicarpa dichotoma does seed around a little bit here in z6a.

That is exactly what I thought Resin, but since I wasn't positive, I left it at what my search turned up.

Callicarpa americana is what I would call invasive round here , but only with in a small area. years and years ago I had this what I thought was a weed growing in my yard. Don't ask me why, but somehow it nevr got mowed and I would always think I would get a shovel and dig it up. it was just a foot tall back then. Every year I would say I was gonan pull it and somehow never got aroudn to it.

I had a huge burn pile right next to it and figured it would be kille d out either from the flames or from the intense heat from burning leave s and fallen limbs. The years passed and still never got it out. Fire didn't touch it. About 6 years ago I went out one day and saw all these cool lookign purple berrie s on my weed. When I found out what I had, I was glad it never got destroyed.

Now some 15 years later I have a huge natural rounded shapped tree that put s on quite a show. I do nothign for this tree. It sits in the middle of the yard in full sun. The problem is I get seedlings popping up here and there all over the yard, but the big problem is not my yard, but the neighbors. The birds eat the fruit at my place and have deposited most of the seed on the neighbors place. There must be better than 50 seedlings all hitting the sixfoot range now on his place. he has no idea what he has and fortunately the new neighbor hasn't trie d to get in there and cut that section out.

The seedlings didn't start sproutign on his place til a former neighbor got drunk and decide d to dumb galsoline helter skelter all his place to get rid of weeds and almost caused all of us to have minor forest fire.

Til the past two years mine as been so beautiful my big one. But I need to get out there and try and do some maintanc e work on it cuz I got muscadine vines now all running through it. Thing of it is got wild muscadine vine s all over the property and none of them has ever produced before but the ones in the Callicarpa americana sure are.

I need to get that tree out of there cuz it in a place I want to work, but now it to big for me to move. : (