What do we DO with the Barberry Bushes?!


© Barbara Hall
Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic

Nov 1, 1999


Sorry that it's been such a long time between articles. After what felt like the longest, saddest, most difficult summer on gardening record, we launched into a fall of such lush, joyous, colorful exuberance that it was hard to settle down and write at all.....

Hallowe'en weekend gives us sunshine and a couple of days near 70 degrees. I think I hyperventilated trying to breathe it all in. It's a wonderful thing to hear a clerk in a book store look at 'been outside all day' Me and say "Well! Looks like SOMEbody got some sun!"

But out there where the beech leaves decide to be rich orange-rust or bright yellow, where the maple leaves do the whole dance in a matter of days and where the oak leaves just go good ole work-boot brown and take their DEAR sweet time fallin', are glowing embers - in the fields, along the fences, and at the woods' edge. Barberry bushes. They're cursed at by the farmers as they will throw MAJOR parties all over the fields and pastures. They're a real BEAR to get out of the ground with enthusiastic roots and some of the meanest needley thorns you EVER met up with. But you know.....they've got a lot going for them. (Notice how I eventually bring you around to that point of view?)

Aside from making spendidly effective "oh-no-not-going-through-HERE" kind of hedges, they have a rather nice form when left to their own devices. There are over 50 cultivated varieties in the United States; and in California, we have three varieties that are endangered!

They start out a dear, light, spring green and make lots of tiny yellow flowers in May and June (but you have to be WATCHING, they don't make much noise, and if you can make friends with the thorns, they make very decent cut flowers). They spend the summer a nice, solid green and not much seems to bother them. Then in the fall, bright red oval berries appear hanging from each leaf node and the leaves turn all KINDS of colors. By the beginning of winter they are the red-berried decorations of the fields, along with the wild roses.

     

Go To Page: 1 2 3


Post this Article to facebook Add this Article to del.icio.us! Digg this Article furl this Article Add this Article to Reddit Add this Article to Technorati Add this Article to Newsvine Add this Article to Windows Live Add this Article to Yahoo Add this Article to StumbleUpon Add this Article to BlinkLists Add this Article to Spurl Add this Article to Google Add this Article to Ask Add this Article to Squidoo
Print Article Print Article
Email Article Email Article
View All Articles View All Articles

Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages
4.   Nov 14, 1999 5:21 PM
Y'SEEEE, if you'd KNOWN about Barberry back then, you could have made many times what Mom paid you to do them in by selling off the root bark! Barberry root bark goes for $20 a pound these days! But y ...

-- posted by LadyB
3.   Nov 14, 1999 4:58 AM
i am very prejudiced against barberry..when i was 12 or 13, my summer job (i think my mother paid me $50 in 1959) was to remove a barberry hedge about 30' long...i sawed off the tops and dug out the b ...

-- posted by happyguy
2.   Nov 10, 1999 4:24 AM
...have been ponds, Renie! Although most ponds I have known have either been where I came to long before I got there, or have been wonderful places I have 'come upon', it must have been fascinating to ...

-- posted by LadyB
1.   Nov 8, 1999 12:09 PM
Barbara. I have a great big Barberry bush and both the birds and I love it. I didn't know you could use the berries like that, so I learned something from your article. Very interesting and enjoyab ...

-- posted by Renie_Burghardt



Join the latest discussions

For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Barbara Hall's Weeds & Wild Plants topic, please visit the Discussions page.