Northern Bayberry

Size, growth and what to expect

A northern bayberry seedling first fruits at 3 or 4 years and reaches maturity at 7 or 8. Growth is medium, roughly a foot and a half a year in youth on an average site, the rate our growth estimator assumes for a medium shrub. It typically stands 5 to 7 feet tall, shorter on poor ground and past 10 feet on a good site. It spreads by rhizomes into a colony 5 to 10 feet wide.

The fruit is a round drupe under a quarter of an inch across, densely hairy under its coat of wax, carried on female plants from late summer until April. Bobwhite, ruffed grouse, pheasant and many songbirds eat it. Bacteria in its root nodules fix nitrogen, adding roughly 14 to 29 pounds an acre a year to poor soils, so it grows on bare sand.

It grows wild from Nova Scotia and Ontario south to Ohio and North Carolina, on dunes, beaches, dry hills and sand flats, and in swampy woods and bogs.

How to grow Northern Bayberry

Northern bayberry grows in full sun or light shade in any soil from beach sand to clay, wet or dry, poor or fertile, best on sandy or peaty ground near pH 6 to 6.5. It widens by suckers, so set plants 4 feet apart for a hedge and 5 feet from a walk or wall.

Plant bare-root or potted shrubs while dormant, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper, crown at the soil line, native soil back in, mulch clear of the stems, no fertilizer. Clear the grass first; bayberry competes poorly with established vegetation. For seed, pick the fruit in September or October and rub the wax off on a screen, since seed will not germinate through it. Sow outdoors in late fall under an inch of sand and a mulch pulled off in early spring. For spring, hold it in damp sand in the refrigerator for 90 days first.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short; after that it needs nothing. Deer mostly pass bayberry by, though they browse it in winter on Assateague and in the Pine Barrens, so cage it where deer are heavy. Keep mulch thin at the stems so voles do not nest there. Heavy pruning weakens it and can cause dieback; head back the few lanky shoots that flop and leave the rest.

Growth is medium, and a seedling first fruits at three or four years, when it shows whether it is male or female. Only females carry fruit, and the pollen travels on the wind, so a male must grow nearby. One plant in five should be male, and a group of five to seven seedlings will almost always include one. It has no serious pests or diseases.