Good Neighbors for Your Beautyberry

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Lane Greer

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Photo Credit: Lane Greer

Masses of red fruit top dark green foliage in a loose hedge of red clusterberry.

I’ll give you one guess as to why beautyberries got their name… It’s because they’re so beautiful, of course! The various Callicarpa species are glorious additions to almost any garden, thanks to their distinctive purple fruit. But just like peas go with carrots and peanut butter goes with jelly, beautyberries go with…well, a variety of plants that can be grown just about anywhere. These good matches complement each other by flowering or fruiting together. They also have similar sun, soil and watering requirements: They like full to partial sun, just about any soil and are drought-tolerant once they’re established. If you’re wondering what to plant alongside your beautyberry, consider these just-as-attractive options:

Cotoneasters (pronounced “kuh-tone-ee-asters” – not “cotton-Easters”) make the list of beautyberry companions because of their colorful fruit, which also appears in fall. Red clusterberry or Parney cotoneaster (Cotoneaster lacteus) is a particularly good selection for lots of reasons. First, this beauty blooms in spring with large clusters of white flowers that later turn to numerous (and gorgeous) red fruit. Second, the shrubby, evergreen plant reaches 6-10 feet tall, making it a popular selection for hedges. (Typically, hedge plants are placed only 2 feet apart, but I think red clusterberry looks best when spaced out and given room to develop.) Red clusterberry can also be trimmed up to form a small tree, but leaving lower branches allows greater access to the fruit. Because the birds usually leave cotoneaster fruit alone, the red color adds winter-long interest. Another bonus to this plant is that it’s tough and requires little maintenance after it’s established.

If you’re searching for a good beautyberry companion with white fruit, try red-osier dogwood (Cornus sericea). The common name “osier” is an old word for “willow,” which gives you an idea of how the plant grows (very fast and up to 6-8 feet tall), as well as where it grows (in wet soils).

Facts

Other dogwoods grown for their stems include red-twig dogwood (Cornus alba) and blood-twig dogwood (Cornus sanguinea).
Some of these shrubs work well in lots of regions around the country. Red clusterberry is hardy in zones 6-8, red-osier dogwood is hardy in zones 2-7, David viburnum is hardy in zones 8-9, laurustinus is hardy in zones 8-10, linden viburnum is hardy in zones 5-7, and American cranberry bush is hardy in zones 2-7.

Tips

Roses also work nicely next to beautyberries. While the flower display doesn’t have the same timing, the fall orange-red color of rose hips looks stunning next to purple beautyberries.

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