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Berries are jewels in winter garden

As Jack Frost nips at the landscape, berries add color and sparkle to the winter garden. In addition to delighting gardeners, they are also a valuable food source for birds and other wildlife. Some of my favorite berry-producing shrubs are cotoneasters, hollies and junipers.

Cotoneasters are a group of broad shrubs, spreading much wider than their height. Besides red, orange or black fall and winter berries, they feature glossy leaves and small, pink or white flowers in early summer. There are varieties ideal as trailing ground covers, foundation plants and hedges.

They are adaptable to a variety of growing conditions, but prefer a spot in full sun to part shade in well-drained soil. Once established, they are drought tolerant. The best for winter berries include creeping, cranberry and rockspray cotoneaster.

Cotoneaster adpressus, or creeping cotoneaster, reaches up to 18 inches tall and 6 feet wide. Shiny green leaves turn burgundy red in fall. Plants show off an abundance of bright red berries when leaves drop.

Cotoneaster apiculatus, commonly called cranberry cotoneaster, is an attractive ground cover that limits erosion on slopes. Plants grow up to 3 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Small, pink flowers in summer give way to small, red berries in fall that persist well into winter.

Cotoneaster horizontalis, or rockspray cotoneaster, grows 2 to 3 feet tall and spreads up to 8 feet. Utilize it as a ground cover or it can be espaliered. Purplish-red berries decorate bare branches until they drop in midwinter.

When most people think of hollies, they picture shrubs with toothed, glossy, dark green, evergreen leaves, but Ilex verticillata drops its leaves in fall, revealing branches lined with bright red berries. Winterberry, as it is commonly called, grows natively in low, swampy areas, but readily adapts to drier garden soils. The species grows from 3 to 15 feet tall. There are cultivars small enough for foundation plantings and others tall enough for screening.

In moist soil, winterberry suckers to form a large colony; in drier soil, it stays much smaller but best berry production occurs in moist, rich soil. It grows in sun or part shade. Only female plants bear fruit and need specific male cultivars for pollination. One male can pollinate several females.

Winter Red grows about 8 feet tall. Red Sprite tops out at 5 feet. Winter Gold sports soft orange berries. Males that pollinate female winterberries include Jim Dandy and Southern Gentleman.

The juniper family of evergreen shrubs offers more than 150 cultivars from ground huggers and small shrubs to narrow columnar sorts and wide, rounded forms. They may sport needles of light or dark green, blue or golden yellow. Regardless of size or shape, junipers should be planted in full sun and well-drained soil.

Blue Rug juniper (Juniperus horizontalis Wiltonii) is an ideal ground cover. Plants with silvery-blue foliage quickly grow up to 12 inches tall and spread 5 to 6 feet wide. Blueberry Delight (Juniperus communis AmiDak) grows up to 18 inches tall and spreads 5 feet wide. Its dark green needles have silvery-blue bands. Compressa (Juniperus communis) is more upright, reaching 3 feet tall and more than 4 feet wide.

The small berries of these plants are jewels in a wintry landscape. Make plans to add some of these berry-producing shrubs to your landscape next year.

• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist, garden writer and the garden center manager at The Planter's Palette in Winfield. She blogs at gardenwithdiana.com.

Robins may spend the winter in a garden with juniper berries.
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