Snowberry puts on brilliant show

Commonly called snowberry or wax berry, Symphoricarpos albus is a deciduous shrub in the honeysuckle family.It has quite a straggly habit, the intertwined branches growing to around 1m to 2m tall. The shrub will mature into a clump and send out suckers allowing it the advantage of increasing its mass, but the disadvantage of trying to keep it in its allotted space. Snowberry is native to North America, more abundant in the west. It grows on rocky slopes, river banks, forest edges, in grasslands and disturbed sites. From this you can deduce it will cope with pretty harsh conditions, and require free-draining soil in sun or semi shade. Untidy, and mostly unremarkable until the berries appear, it is best grown in a less formal place where suckers are easily removed if necessary. Snowberry would make a lovely small informal hedge.

Their dull green leaves don’t colour up much before they drop in autumn and the flowers are tiny, bell shaped and pink. The highlight of the snowberry is the brilliant white globose berries produced on bare branches in late summer and autumn, often hanging around into winter. Knowing that a symphony is a gathering of sound, it is not hard to twig that Symphoricarpos is a gathering of seeds – the berries develop so close together on the branches, they can appear as one unit.

You can spot a sprawl of berries growing on the upper side of the top path of the rock garden at Dunedin Botanic Garden.

Garden Life is produced by Dunedin Botanic Garden.

For further Information contact Robyn Abernethy.