Maid To Garden

In The Garden Of Good Living - March 2010 - Delmarva Landscape Essentials: The Bayberry
by Pat Hendrickson

During the last two days, I've noticed many Bayberries crushed, bent, and broken all along the roadsides, in peoples' yards, and in the woods. Fortunately, the Bayberry is a resilient native to our eastern shore area, and given time, will come back beautiful and bushy.

When we first built our home here, 27 years ago, we had an entire bank of Bayberry shrubs in our back yard. A lot of them were dug up in order to install our bulkhead and dock. I didn't think much of it at the time. I didn't know anything about what they were or how the birds depend on them, or that I could take the berries and release their rich fragrance throughout my home during the cold winter months.

It didn't take long for the Bayberry shrubs that remained to send out new growth from the roots, forming more shrubs that eventually became trees. Each week we would travel from the D. C. area to our weekend retreat. Over time, we noticed that our neighbor's elderly father would sit in amongst the Bayberries pruning them. He would methodically trim the lower branches from each of the shrubs, leaving a main trunk with a perfectly formed canopy. Today, we have Bayberry trees throughout our back yard that are 15 and 20 feet tall. We trim the tops every other year to keep them at the height we prefer, and to enjoy their full canopy of leaves.

Those trees have given us so much enjoyment. They are easily shaped to whatever needs we have - shade, an anchor for our hammock, nooks and crannies for bird boxes, food for the birds, and privacy from other houses.

If you have damaged Bayberry shrubs or trees, simply prune them back to below the damaged area, and watch them sprout in the spring. Thick trunks will take longer to come back to their previous shape, but they will come back.

If you don't own any Bayberries, you might want to try one or two in your yard. They are tolerant of salt spray, can help to stabilize coastline, make great hedges and woodland borders, provide year round shelter for animals, and are an important energy source for migrating swallows. Even resident birds such as quail, grouse, and songbirds depend on the berries for food. In fact birds that eat the berries don't fully digest them helping to propagate the shrubs. The waxy coating on the berries was a favorite of of colonial era settlers who used it to make candles.

The bayberry is an icon of the Delmarva landscape and a must in coastal native gardens.

Find out more online about bayberries:
http://efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=121458
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=mope6
http://www.delawarewildflowers.org/plant.php?id=1315&mode=C
http://plants.usda.gov/java/nameSearch?mode=sciname&keywordquery=Morella+cerifera
http://www.garden.org/search?keyword=bayberry&q=search

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