Beautyberry or American Beautyberry is one of our most drought tolerant shrubs that provides colorful fruit for most of the year. It is naturally found on the back of dunes, in scrub, pinelands and oak hammocks.
Beautyberry will tolerate moderate shade to full sun and average soil. In North Florida these plants are killed to the ground by frost, yet come up as multiple canes in the spring. Cut them to the ground in February to mimic this and they will be low and full.
Combine Beautyberry with Wild Coffee, Snowberry, Rough Plant and Marlberry under an oak tree. Or, with Saw Palmetto, Horizontal Cocoplum, Coralbean, Coontie, Beach Creeper, Sand Cordgrass and Myrsine around a group of Slash Pines.
The berries are not poisonous, yet not tasty either. In fact, they taste a bit like cleaning fluid. They mainly provide moisture to birds in the dry part of spring. During migration, the fruit will be cleaned off the branches. Squirrels like them too.
Rub the leaves in your palm and apply the juices to your arms and legs for an insect repellent that really does keep mosquitoes away. I have tried this while working outside during the summer and found relief for a half hour or more.
There are white fruiting forms of Beautyberry, but I have found that the parent plants usually come from Texas and don’t like our climate.
Bahama Wild Coffee is more drought tolerant than Shiny Leaf Wild Coffee. Once established, it rarely wilts, even during a dry spell. It does well in both full sun and moderate shade. Bahama Wild Coffee makes a nice low ground cover that can be kept below four feet easily and rarely grows taller than six feet with no trimming.
The clusters of small white flowers attract butterflies and bees and the red berries produced in the fall are eaten by many bird species. These are edible, yet not very tasty.
This is an endangered shrub of the Florida Keys, yet is easy to propagate from seed collected in local plantings. If you are having trouble with the large size of Shiny Leaf Coffee, Psychotria nervosa, then try this compact shrub.
Mix with Coontie, Beach Creeper, Beach Elder, Snowberry, Spiderlily, Beach Cocoplum and Quailberry in areas where a low to no maintenance cover is needed.
There is a clone called “Gann’s Mound” which honors the native plant growers Don and Joyce Gann. This is propagated by cuttings and stays very low. It makes a good replacement for the boring, overused Green Island Ficus that we see everywhere.
Bahama Wild Coffee, along with many others may get various scale insect pests. These are controlled with “Organocide” or “Neem” oil which are harmless to humans and safe for wildlife.
Bitterbush is a dioecious small tree that weeps with fern-like pinnate foliage that adds a tropical feel to the landscape. The strings of pea size berries turn bronze-red in the late summer and gradually become black as they ripen, dry and fall as late as February.
Bitterbush is found naturally in the Biscayne Bay area of Miami in hammocks with moderate shade or open sun. It is not tolerant of salt yet grows well in average soil at least as far north as Palm Beach County.
Use Bitterbush to break up the texture of a planting. Mix Bitterbush with wildflowers, ornamental grasses, Coontie, Beach Creeper or other ground covers and occasional shrubs or small trees around the house as an alternative to the usual “foundation planting”.
Bitterbush looks nice on the corner of the house, near the doorway or on the side of a window. It even makes a nice component of a mixed hedge due to its upright, conical growth. The foliage becomes bronzed in the coldest periods of winter which is a nice way to experience the season.
If you are looking for a shrub that rarely gets taller than 15 feet, Bitterbush will meet the need. The fruit are bitter and should not be eaten. The bark and leaves are used in medicine.
The next time you visit the hammocks of Biscayne Bay, keep an eye out for this lovely shrub. Simpson Hammock is a sure bet. This is also a member of the same family of plants that the beautiful Paradise Tree belongs to: Simaroubaceae.
Bahama Strongbark is native to the Florida Keys and West Indies. This is a fine shrub or small tree for instant curb appeal.
The half inch, white, fragrant flowers are attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies during the day and interesting moths at night. The half inch orange fruit are eaten by local birds and are not toxic, or tasty either.
The branches droop like a weeping willow and are dense. You can keep this plant at six feet in height for a great wildlife attracting hedge or let it grow to 15 feet or more.
Bahama Strongbark is tolerant of mild cold weather, drought and salt. Do not plant north of Palm Beach County due to the cold.
Use with low ground covers like Beach Creeper and Coontie and wildflowers including Dune Sunflower, Twinflower, Red Salvia and Beach Verbena.
This is a great plant for the front of the property where everyone can see it. Use this instead of the extremely cold sensitive Orange Geiger.
I particularly enjoy seeing this tree growing naturally in the Key Largo area. Sometimes a lone tree can be found that is tall, round and full of orange berries, like the one in this picture. This is quite a sight in late summer to early fall.
You may need to trim some of the excess of branches and twigs of a young tree in order to develop the structure that the tree will keep throughout its life. Look for crossing branches and too closely spaced twigs. Also, stake the central leader if you want a straight trunk.
