Re: Snowberry

In a message dated 7/10/04 8:51:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, stedman@RCN.COM
writes:


<<Anyone have any experience growing Symphoricarpos albus or related species?>
>

I forgot this list was on my computer and I have been doing other things for
a while so was surprised to see the last two days of messages.  Two years of
rain in New York.  What a change from the 90's.

Nancy, this plant is an old favorite because it was passed around from friend
to friend being very easy to grow.  You would often see it used a hedge in
city front gardens.  On my old farm, I am still trying to kill off sprouts of
snowberry after pulling it out ten years ago.  Ditto, the common lilac and a
common form of shrub form quince sold now as Texas scarlet.  Some of these can
remain viable underground for several years and reappear on a wet spring.

Snowberries will grow and do well in deep shade but they will not bloom and
fruit without sun.  They will however, and this is what prompts me to write
this note, establish themselves in time and sucker all over your garden.  Only
when used as hedges and kept in line by the lawnmower should you plant these
shrubs.  If you have an old garden and you already have one of these menaces, so
be it but it you are planting anew, why put in something that will cover a
half acre all by itself in time.

There are so many shrubs that do not sucker, do think carefully about those
that do.  If you are an avid gardener and keep you soils fertile, these monster
plants will take advantage of your good soils and crowd out non-suckering
plants.  A little research will save you years of snowberry sprouts.  Also have a
good long look at the berries.  They are not so great looking like some sort
of ugly growth on the plants in the fall.  Of  course, this last comment is my
opinion and may be colored by the trouble the plants have caused here over
the years.

Those berry articles you read every fall and the handsome pix hardly ever
tell you the blooms that precede the berries are not much to look at and the
shrubs are generally coarse and unattractive.  Exept hollies from that comment.

Claire Peplowski
NYZ zone 4
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