Parker's Picks — Winterberry

A hardy Western New York native shrub, Winterberry is one of our few deciduous hollies, dropping its leaves each autumn to reveal a spectacular display of bright red berries. Plants typically grow 6–12 feet tall with a dense, multi-stemmed habit. It performs best in full sun to partial shade and moist, acidic soils but also thrives in rain gardens, wet areas, and along ponds and streams.

Winterberry is an outstanding landscape plant, prized for its vivid winter color, excellent deer and rabbit resistance, and attractive branches for holiday decorations. To produce fruit, you’ll need at least one male shrub to pollinate nearby female plants—the females produce the berries, and a single male can pollinate several females.

Winterberry is a pollinator powerhouse. Its spring flowers provide nectar and pollen for native bees and other pollinators, while the shrub serves as a larval host for several native butterflies and moths. The persistent berries provide an important late-winter food source for more than 40 species of birds when other food is scarce. Its dense branching also offers valuable nesting cover and shelter for wildlife.

The Haudenosaunee valued Winterberry as a medicinal plant. Traditional healers prepared remedies from the bark, leaves, and roots to support digestive health, reduce fevers, and cleanse and treat wounds. These medicines reflected generations of botanical knowledge and careful preparation.