The intriguing colour purple adds to the exotic mystique of berries from China to Tasmania, writes JANE POWERS
WHEN I WAS a small child and living in the US, there was a kind of bubble gum that I really liked. But my parents took a dim view of gum-chewing. And as for bubble-blowing: that was the kind of thing that nice little girls did not do. Therefore, sour-grape bubble-gum balls – sweetly tart, chewily elastic and preternaturally purple – always had to be obtained by subterfuge.
I haven’t seen or tasted these forbidden non-fruits for 30 or 40 years. Nonetheless, whenever I encounter any shiny, deep-purple orb, I feel the ghost of that rush when sight, smell and taste collided, just as the perfect gum ball met the mouth. As it happens, there are a couple of plants with berries that are exactly the right colour to unlock this memory, so they have a special place in my heart (and my garden). Dianella tasmanica is a native of Tasmania and southeast Australia, with petite blue flowers and strappy, leathery leaves – the latter show its kinship with phormium or New Zealand flax. The glossy, egg-shaped, purple fruits (about 1.5cm long) follow in August, and last well into the autumn. They are its star attraction, and always provoke a “what’s that?” from passers-by.
Billardiera longiflora, a climbing member of the pittosporum family, is from the same part of the world. It has dainty, evergreen foliage, greeny-yellow bell flowers (smallish and nothing to write home about), and small, purple-lobed fruits – like surreally coloured miniature apples. One of its common names is purple apple berry, which may refer to the taste, as well as the appearance. You can eat the fruits, but – having just tried a few, in the interests of research – I can’t see why you would want to, unless you were trapped in the back garden and had polished off everything else edible. The flesh is dry, fluffy and meagre, and the seeds are many and hard. Billardiera is a little tender, and requires a warm wall and well-drained soil. The thin, wiry stems twine around their supports, and need a helpful hand to send them on their journey upwards. You can also grow it so that it hangs down over a wall or bank. There are pink and white berried versions, ‘Cherry Berry’ and var. fructu-albo; these are harder to find than the species.
There is more purple, of a slightly milkier tone, to be found in the fruits of the Chinese native, Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii. The small, round berries take on a metallic sheen as they age, so that they look like cartoon ball bearings. The aptly-named Profusion is the most readily available. The common name for the genus is “beautyberry” in America, where there are a handful of species. It seems a pity that we can’t adopt it here in place of the unwieldy Latin handle.
The berries of the South American Gaultheria mucronata (formerly known as Pernettya) come in a palette of colours that heads off in a rosy direction. Depending on the cultivar, they may be white, pale pink, violet or deep red. A member of the heather family (and sometimes known as prickly heath), this low shrub requires acid soil to thrive. In some places it thrives far too well, and can become invasive. In the woods of Glenveagh National Park in
Co Donegal, for instance, it is a nuisance. In a town garden, or a country garden that doesn’t border on bog or woodland, however, there is little danger of it developing conquistadorial tendencies.
Another plant with oddball berries, that is liable to make itself a bit too welcome in naturalistic gardens and in the wild, is Symphoricarpos, or snowberry. There are several species and cultivars, all bearing pure white, pink or reddish fruits with a smooth, inflated appearance, like Lilliputian balloons. Snowberries are not fussy about soil or moisture and will grow in shade as well as sun. The taller kinds are traditionally used in mixed hedging. Bees adore the tiny white or pinkish flowers.
All the above berries are in offbeat colours, and fall into the “talking points” category in the garden. In other words, they’re fun to have, but not essential. I feel completely differently about red-berried plants: to my mind, these make up some of the important vertebrae in the backbone of the garden. I write about them every year, so I’m trying hard to give them a miss this time.
Yet, just before I go, let me remind you that red is an uplifting colour, and is the perfect complement to the green of foliage. Red berries, moreover, are the ones that bring the birds in to fill their bellies, while entertaining us with their antics. The rose family (Rosaceae) gives us the best selection of rubicund fruits for our avian friends. Among its members are rowan (Sorbus), hawthorn (Crataegus), crabapple (Malus), cotoneaster, pyracantha, and roses, of course. Also good for the birds are holly (Ilex), guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) and wayfaring tree (V. lantana).
DIARY DATE
Sunday, October 11th, 11am: Irish Garden Plant Society annual plant sale at Parish Hall, Our Lady of Dolours Church, Glasnevin, Dublin.
A friend of mine – whose advice I regularly borrow for this column – suggests visiting the garden centre every month of the year, instead of during fine weather when the gardening bug is most infectious. It’s human nature to buy plants that are showing off in some way, such as flowering or berrying. Nurseries know this, and regularly produce “looking good” lists for retailers from which to choose plants. So, if you want an all-year garden (and we surely need colour at this darkening end of the cycle), visit the garden centre during these quiet months and pick up seasonal plants to perk up the duller days.
Don’t stint on the planting, but remember the old saying: “A penny for the plant, a pound for the hole.” This applies especially to shrubs and trees. Dig a big hole, so that the roots have plenty of room to spread. Don’t go down further than the subsoil (the change in colour will alert you when to stop), as you don’t want to mix this inert, heavy material with the top soil. You can, however, break it up slightly with a fork to encourage worms to penetrate it, and to aid drainage. If your soil is lean and poor, mix in plenty of compost, and well-rotted manure (if you can get it) with the top soil as you fill the hole in after planting.