# American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)

> Glossy violet berries ring every stem in fall and feed mockingbirds and thrushes into winter; a fast, easy native shrub for sun or light shade.

Also called French mulberry, sourbush, American mulberry. Category: Native Shrubs. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-beautyberry/

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 3 to 6 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 6 to 10
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Dry, Average
- Growth rate: Fast
- Traits: Wildlife value, Drought tolerant, Edible
- Natural communities: understory, old-field, sandy, coastal
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

American beautyberry is a loose, arching shrub of open woods, edges and fencerows from Maryland and Virginia south to Florida and west to Texas and Oklahoma. Small pink flowers sit in whorls at the leaf joints in early summer, and by September each joint carries a ring of berries in a purple no other native shrub can match, held on the bare stems after the leaves drop. Mockingbirds, catbirds, robins, thrushes and towhees strip them through the winter; the fruit is edible for people too, bland raw and good as a jelly. Perfect for a sunny edge, a bird hedge or the bright spot by a deck where a shrub can be cut back hard each spring.

It flowers and fruits on new wood, so it can be cut to a foot in late winter and still be covered in berries by fall, which also keeps it tidy. Near the northern edge of its range a hard winter may kill the tops, and it simply resprouts from the base. The crushed leaves were a folk mosquito repellent in the rural South, and USDA chemists later isolated the compounds responsible.

## How to grow American Beautyberry

American beautyberry is hardy in zones 6 through 10 and fruits best in full sun, though it takes light shade with a thinner crop. Any well-drained soil suits it, sand and clay alike, and it shrugs off summer drought once established. It grows 3 to 6 feet tall and as wide, so allow 5 feet between plants and 4 feet from a wall or walk.

Plant potted or bare-root shrubs while dormant, from leaf fall until the buds swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper, with the crown at the soil line and the native soil put back. Mulch a ring two inches deep, clear of the stems. Sow seed in fall, cleaned of pulp, a quarter inch deep in a pot or bed left outdoors for the winter; it germinates in spring, and seedlings can flower in their second year.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short; after that it needs nothing. Deer browse it, so cage young plants for two years where deer are heavy. It flowers on the new growth, so cut the whole shrub back to about a foot in late winter to keep it compact and loaded with fruit. Near the northern edge of its range the tops may die in a hard winter; cut them off in spring and it regrows from the base.

The berries ripen in September and hold into winter unless the birds find them first. A single plant fruits on its own.

## Related

- Planting-site check: https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/?species=american-beautyberry
- Companion species: https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/?species=american-beautyberry
- Growth estimate: https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/?species=american-beautyberry