One winter, wild birds threw a raucous fiesta in our pyracantha hedge. The frenzy was unremitting as sparrows and finches dined on overripe, fermented berries.
Normally our berries are long gone before they can ferment because this usually is one of my best holiday decorating shrubs. But not that year.
Pyracantha produces huge sprays of vivid red berries that are far less fickle in their development than that of holly, which requires a pollinator. Pyracantha is self-fertile, so you get a great crop every year. That is, of course, if you don’t shear the flowers off before berries can form.
Pyracantha blooms in summer with small white flowers that mature by the holidays into beautiful red-orange sprays. Birds are notorious for spreading the seed, so these shrubs naturalize everywhere climate allows. Its name translates from the Latin as firethorn, a name that describes the wickedly spined branches that make this such a fine security barrier.
Evergreen pyracantha also takes well to shearing, but this will prevent berry production. It’s an old-fashioned candidate for espalier on south-facing walls in Europe. It was also popular earlier in the 20th century and then again in the 1960s. It’s been sheared into flat walls of green or trained into diamond-shaped patterns (a pattern not often grown any more because of the amount of clipping required).
This shrub is a member of the apple family, and its berries are similar to tiny apples. They are edible and, in the past, have been used to make jam. But like most members of this family, the shrub is susceptible to fireblight, a bacterial disease that makes branches appear as though they’d been burned back by a flame. Fireblight is contagious, and often spread by infected pruning tools. The only real solution is to use sterilized pruners often when cutting infected branches off plants. Make the cut well below the lowest point of infection to check its spread.
Pyracantha also is afflicted by a fruit-discoloring scab, just like orchard apples, that gives the bright berries a dark, sooty appearance.
Gardeners who long for more holiday berries should not transplant wild seedlings; they likely will inherit perpetual disease problems. The U.S. National Arboretum has developed some great varieties, available at nurseries, that are resistant to both fireblight and scab to ensure your hard work will result healthy plants with heavy berry crops.
From the Arboretum came Mohave, a variety that grows to a whopping 13 feet tall and wide. The fruit is bright red, maturing from late August to midwinter. This is an ideal variety for perimeter plantings, privacy hedges and dark green background foliage.
A smaller variety, Yukon Belle, offers the same hardiness, berry color and season. It grows to just 8 feet tall and as wide, making it a more manageable sized shrub for foundation planting and limited spaces. It will take nicely to shearing into semiformal hedges or as small-scale espaliers.
Dr. Elwin Orton of Rutgers University introduced another good disease resistant variety in 1980. This even lower-growing form, Pyracantha coccinea Rutgers, tops out at three to four feet tall spreads to as much as nine feet in diameter. This offers a great plant for groundcover, where plentiful berries can be produced that are easy to cut without a ladder.
Problems with disease ended many pyracantha design trends in the past, but they are coming back strong and more resistant. This plant deserves a new look for its natural vigor, wildlife value, exceptional winter color and – the best part – free holiday decorating material.
