Photography courtesy © laurensgardenservice.com
‘Tis the season to be giving to our friends, family, and loved ones—including our animal companions. It could also be the season that we give wildlife, specifically our winter birds, a little something too. Planting Native trees and shrubs is a natural way to add interest and color to your yard, but also food and shelter resources for wildlife. String a length of holiday lights around a cedar to double down on that holiday cheer!
In addition to enhancing winter aesthetics, native berry producing shrubs tend to be high-quality winter food sources. On average, these berries are 50 percent fat – providing the nutrition our winter wildlife needs to stay alive throughout these cold months.
Seeing Red (Berries)
What says winter, naturally, more than snow-capped clusters of scarlet berries on bare shrubs? Two very yard-friendly native plants keep their red berries through winter – piquing our interest, while also providing late season fruit for songbirds and small mammals.
Winterberry is a deciduous shrub that bears an abundance of pea-sized red berries that are arranged tight to the twig. These berries remain on the shrub through late winter, providing us humans with visual interest and wildlife a late winter food source. To ensure berries on your winterberry, both male and female shrubs need to be planted near one another. This plant grows well in wet to medium soil and under full to partial sun conditions. American Robins, Cedar Waxwings and Eastern Bluebirds are among the 40+ species of songbird that enjoy the scarlet berries of this holly.
Two male bluebirds; battling for access to winterberry berries? Photography courtesy © Morgan Quimby, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.
Winterberry Holly during the growing season, with its leaves. Photography courtesy © Prairie Moon Nursery
American holly is an evergreen tree, with waxy pointed leaves. This tree usually grows in a conical shape familiar to a lot of evergreen trees, but is not needle-leaved. In New Jersey, hollies are quite common in some of the sandier soils of the coastal plain, at Sandy Hook and areas of the Pine Barrens. Like Winterberry, hollies require separate male and female plants for berries to develop. A slow growing tree that prefers moist but well drained soils, it will grow in any amount of sun, reaching 40-60 feet in height. American holly is highly deer resistant, and also host species to Henry’s Elfin, a small and fuzzy iridescent brown butterfly.
A springtime view of American Holly flowers. Photo courtesy © Alan Cressler, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Ripe berries and retained leaves give this plant the nickname Christmas Holly. Photography courtesy © David Dunatchik, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
KEEPING IT GREEN
Evergreen plants, including trees, shrubs and ferns are another tried and true way to add interest and color to a winter landscape. Keeping their leaves, these plants become shelter for wintering songbirds on blustery days and colder nights by insulating them against the wind.
Eastern red cedars are tough; here in the mid-Atlantic, they are usually one of the first woody species to colonize abandoned fields, beginning forest succession. These trees tend to be deer-resistant, having scaly and somewhat prickly foliage, but in areas of very high densities, deer will nibble on these trees. In addition to welcomed winter cover, female cedars also offer “berries” for birds and small mammals during the winter months. These “berries” are silvery blue color when ripe, and in actuality are fleshy berry-like cones (like other conifers). As odd as that may sounds, the fruits are still a favorite, especially of the Cedar Waxwing – a songbird named after its favorite fruit!
Berry-like cones on a female red cedar. Check out the scaly aesthetic of the leaves! Photography courtesy © R.W. Smith, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Cedar Waxwings perched on an Eastern Red Cedar branch. Photography courtesy © Danny Brown, Birds and Blooms.
Cedar trees can have very dense foliage when grown in full sun! Photography courtesy © James Garland Holmes, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Northern bayberry is another braw evergreen, growing as a multi-branched and sprawling shrub that we use in restoration projects whenever we can – it grows in wet conditions and dry sandy soils, is salt tolerant and deer resistant! In New Jersey, these plants usually retain their waxy green leaves through the winter, and female shrubs also produce tiny waxy fruits, whitish in color. This species has the highest fat content of all native berries, making it an excellent winter food for small birds. It’s also what Colonists used to make candles with. With this shrub in your yard, you could attract bluebirds, yellow-rumped warblers and chickadees, just to name a few. This species makes a great hedgerow or single-specimen planting.
The abundant and tiny waxy fruit of Northern Bayberry. Photography courtesy © Albert F.W. Vick, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
A landscaped planting of Northern Bayberry. Photography courtesy © Mt. Cuba Center.
These species and other evergreen plants, like Christmas Fern, and awesome berry producers, like American Beautyberry, can be locally sourced at native plant nurseries and through FoHVOS’s native plant sale. All FoHVOS plants are sold to FoHVOS members at cost, and orders are due early March. If you can’t wait that long though, try some of our other NJ based nurseries, including:
There are also a few great native plant nurseries across the river, in Pennsylvania.
