Decorating With Winterberry

     I love using these red berries for fall and winter decorating.   They stay fresh looking for a long time, and when they finally do dry, they still look beautiful.  Winterberry will hang on the cut branches all winter if they are not disturbed. 



Winterberry bushes with the leaves gone.

      Right now in Northeastern Wisconsin the wet ditches are loaded with winterberries.  If you pick them before the leaves are off, the leaves stay on too!  Hand picking leaves off one by one is not fun, so I always wait until the leaves fall.  If you wait too long though, the birds will have them gone or the berries will fall off of the growing bush.  Cutting the bush does not harm it.  It will only grow twice as big next year!

     If you cut a branch with berries on, they will stay on all winter, in the house or outside.  When I am done decorating with them, out to the chickens they go.  A special treat for them.






Winterberries begin the transition from summer flower pots
into fall/Christmas pots.  Before the dirt is frozen hard in the
pots (mid Nov.), pine boughs will replace the flower greens and
the winterberries will be the center of the display.
The start of winter decorating at the office.





The start of winter decorating at the house.

 
.....jean


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