The Berry Best!

Would you like your yard to be the neighborhood hot-spot for birds? Just serve up some delicious native berries and your place will be hopping!

It’s so much fun to see big crowds of robins, mockingbirds, blue jays, cardinals, and catbirds decide that your yard is the place to be. In late fall, the berries on native trees and shrubs are where the action is!

Summer berries are popular, too, and native plants like blueberry, elderberry, shad bush (Amelanchier), black cherry, plums, and dogwoods see plenty of action from June through September.

But as the weather turns cold and insect populations decline, the fruit of late-producing native trees and shrubs becomes critical for many birds. Birds preparing for long migrations need to fuel up for the journey, and winter resident birds need the most durable berries to get them through to spring. Small song-birds like finches, warblers, chickadees and sparrows can fill up on the seeds of perennials and grasses, but raucous gangs of bigger birds will go where the berries are.

While it’s true that birds will eat berries from some species of non-native trees and shrubs, that’s not a good thing. The berries of Oriental bittersweet, Japanese barberry, English ivy, Korean dogwood, and burning bush are not as nutritious for local birds as berries of North American native plants. It makes sense that over millennia, birds and plants co-evolved to give birds what they need when they need it. The fruits of native trees and shrubs supply the correct balance of fats and carbohydrates to fuel migration and winter survival.

But, if adequate North American berry plants are not available, birds are forced to scavenge non-native berries to survive. Not only will they suffer from poor nutrition in that case, they end up spreading the non-native seeds through their droppings into natural areas where the resulting plants become invasive, replacing essential native plants in the environment, and further reducing quality food supplies for winter birds.

That’s why it’s so important to plant native trees and shrubs in your yard!

And why wouldn’t you? There are so many choices that offer beautiful seasonal interest for your landscape while also feeding the birds. Here are some of the berry best:

Green Hawthorn (Crataegus viridis)
In the wild, Green Hawthorn is a tough, thorny, small tree native to forest edges from Delaware to Florida, and in the Midwest along the Mississippi River valley. A modern cultivar called ‘Winter King’ is nearly thornless, disease-resistant, and produces very ornamental fruit, making it an excellent choice for even small suburban yards.

Typically no more than 20 to 30 feet tall and wide, with an attractive vase shape and interesting exfoliating bark, ‘Winter King’ Hawthorn blooms with small white flowers in spring. In summer, its dark green leaves are an important host to numerous species of butterflies. The tree has an open habit that will not shade out underplanting or lawn. In fall, the berry-like fruit turns bright red and adds a great touch to the autumn landscape. If birds are very hungry, they will start working on the berries in fall, but Hawthorn fruit is known to be long-lasting and will likely provide for birds well into winter.

American Holly (Ilex opaca)
The festive winter look of American Holly, with its bright red berries and deep green leaves, appeals both to humans and birds.

Cardinals, mockingbirds, catbirds, and blue jays are all fans of Holly berries. If the birds don’t completely devour them by the end of the year, the berries can hang on until spring when robins come back to finish them off.

American Holly is one of our finest evergreen trees, and is native all along the Atlantic coast from southeastern Maine to Maryland and even in parts of Florida. In suburban New York, Hollies will slowly reach 30 to 40 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide. They are ideal for adding depth and variety to otherwise monotonous property-line rows of Arborvitae. A mixed border of Holly, Arborvitae, Eastern Red-cedar, and Rhododendron is a great privacy screen and supplies both food and shelter for a wide variety of birds. Because Hollies are dioecious (separate male and female plants), it’s a good idea to include a male Holly within 50 feet or so of the female to get a good berry crop. For more on American Holly, click here.

Eastern Red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana)
Some associations between birds and their favorite plants are so strong they even find their way into the bird’s name! The magnificent “cedar waxwing” is such a case. More accurately called juniper berries, the fragrant fruit of the Eastern Red-cedar is favored by robins (see the second video above), as well as cardinals and mockingbirds. But the possibility of attracting a late-winter flock of cedar waxwings is reason enough to plant this tree in your yard.

For a more detailed description of Eastern Red-cedar as a landscape tree, click here.

Crabapples (Malus spp.)
Certainly, one of the most popular small flowering trees in residential landscapes is the Crabapple. It’s a good choice for many reasons. Although there are only a few species of native Crabapples, the Malus genus, including non-natives and hybrids, seems to be one of the few trees found all around the world that is as well-accepted by North American insects and birds as our native species. Crabapple leaves are known to host over 300 species of butterflies, and the fruit is enjoyed by birds, squirrels, deer, and other wildlife. (See the third video above for the Crabapple feast.)

There are so many Crabapple varieties available in such a wide range of tree size, flower color, and fruit size and color, that there is bound to be one that will become a favorite in your yard. These lovely trees provide year-round interest and wildlife watching: bumblebees in spring, butterflies in summer, and flocks of birds in fall and winter.

While the birds in my yard seem to go for other berries first, that just means Crabapples stay on the tree longer, looking great even in the depth of winter. By spring, returning migrating birds will clean up the remaining fruit long before the tree starts blooming again.

In addition to the trees described above, several native shrubs are also outstanding late-season berry producers.

My favorite is Winterberry (Ilex verticillata). The feeding frenzy in the first video above explains why. An easy-care shrub with cultivars available in a range of ultimate sizes, Winterberry really belongs in every garden. See a full description here.

Northern Bayberry (Myrica or Morella pensylvanica) is another good shrub for winter bird food. The berries are sturdy and can stay on the plant for as long as two years. Small enough to be attractive even to warblers, the berries also appeal to larger birds. As a landscape plant, Bayberry is durable, attractive, and a great choice for hedges. See the blog post here for more information.

Viburnum nudum, commonly called Possumhaw or Smooth Witherod, is my all-around favorite shrub, and its berries are just part of the reason why. The berries change color from pink to blue to black as they mature, and in their final stage, they look almost like raisins.

Birds will eat them at every stage, but the berries somehow last for months until they are finally picked clean just as winter really sets in. With its big white flowers in spring, shiny leaves in summer, and spectacular fall color, this is a shrub for all seasons – as well as for the birds! For more info, click here.

So, berry-up! Adding a few of these handsome native trees and shrubs to your yard will turn it into the ultimate bird hang-out. And you’ll love having the whole gang stop by!