During this time of
year, the scenery changes, seemingly minute by minute. Light
changes: the angle of the sun creates shadows and details. Color
changes; grasses go to warm browns and golds, meadows show off aster
purples, goldenrods and Joe Pye weed magentas.
There are other colors
showing up in hedgerows and shrub lands and along roadsides. This is
the season for berries. Throughout the spring and summer we enjoyed
the flowers, some showy, some discrete. Some are fragrant and others
not at all. But now the great variety of berries, the fruits, creates
a special show,
Take
a ride along a back country road, or even along the highway, and it
is impossible not to notice the bounty of berries. We have dozens of
native shrubs and bushes that have evolved to provide the vital foods
needed by small mammals and birds. Ripening over a succession of
weeks and even months through fall and winter, they provide a food
source for birds when insects are long gone. Migratory song birds
will rely on shrub-lands full of cover and food as they stop after a
long night of flight to rest and feast and refuel.
But not all berries are
created equal! Over the decades shrubs were imported and planted as
ornamentals. Multiflora Rose created instant hedgerows and fragrant
white flowers in spring. Those flowers turned into abundant fruits,
rose hips, that were eaten by many species of birds. Seeds were
dispersed in droppings and now the rose has become an invader, an
aggressive spreader that is quick to colonize fields and roadsides.
Even though it does provide food and cover, it will out-compete other
native plants in our landscape.
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| Multiflora Rose |
Autumn Olive was
planted deliberately along our highways to create visual buffers, and
also to be a quick cover to prevent erosion. Now that shrub dominates
the roadsides. Red berries are abundant now and robins and thrushes
are quick to find them. At this time of year we can witness great
flocks of starlings, along the highways, swirling and circling as
they descend into the medians and roadside edges to feast on the
berries and further disperse the seeds.
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| Autumn Olive |
We all enjoy the
colors of autumn decorations, but beware of using the non-native and
invasive Oriental Bittersweet. It is another truly lovely berry, but
a menace when its seeds are spread. The resulting vines climb and
twist their way up trees and over native shrubs, strangling and
adding their weight and causing death to the plant that supports it.
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| Oriental Bittersweet |
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| Oriental Bittersweet vine |
One of the most
outstanding plants for colorful berries is likely the very worst
invader: Porcelain berry. A decade or so ago, it was a sought after
nursery plant, a climbing vine with most unusual berries. They start
creamy white, then to pale green, then light teal, deeper aqua, sky
blue and then to purple when ripe. Porcelain berry vine is a
vigorous grower, adding inches, if not feet, almost overnight. It
covers everything in its path. Obstructing light, smothering plants
beneath, it forms a dense monoculture allowing no diversity and
changing the landscape and altering valuable habitat.
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| Porcelain berry smothering a ceder tree. |
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| The colorful Porcelain berry. |
Walk through the Moore
Woodlands in Groton, Knox Preserve or Knox Family Farm in Stonington,
Pine Swamp in Ledyard, Preston Nature Preserve and many other
Avalonia Land Conservancy properties. Notice the berries. Take the
time to learn the non-natives and notice the beastly effects they
have on our landscape and avoid them in your own. Opt for natives
instead and the birds will be happier you did.
Written and
photographed by Beth Sullivan.
