Coralberry Bushes

Shade-Loving Late-Season Color! Coralberry Bushes at Nature Hills!

The Coralberry bush (Symphoricarpos) is a pink-fruited form of the white-berried Snowberry bush. Depending on where you live, these ornamental shrubs can also go by the names Devil's Shoestring, Buckberry, Snapberry, Waxberry, Turkey Bush, Buckbrush, or Indian Currant!

This is an ornamental deciduous plant with showy bubbly pink berries on a very easy-to-grow flowering shrub that loves the shade!

Both the pink to purple-hued Coralberry are native shrubs in the Honeysuckle family that form a mounded texture to the landscape with pretty, small arching branches.

The greenish-white to pink dainty flowers are pollinator-friendly and form along the zig-zagging branches that, with age, develop shredding bark on older wood and brown to purplish branchlets. All along each arching, slender branch, green leaves form in pairs along their length and create a pretty dappled effect as newer growth is lighter than mature foliage.

This low-growing ornamental shrub produces attractive clusters of coral-pink to purple berries which remain on the plant through the winter and stand out against the bare winter branches! Plus in the winter, you'll enjoy the zig-zagging growth the slender stems form as they grow!

For a neat winter decoration, use the berry-laden winter stems for indoor floral arrangements. Besides having significant winter interest, it is an important wildlife plant. Songbirds, ground birds, small mammals, and browsers use this plant for food, cover, and nesting. Self-fertile, these hardy shrubs will be filled with unique berries all on their own!

Coralberry in the Landscape

Both native forms and fancy cultivars of Coralberry/Snowberry bushes extend their easy-going informal nature to your landscape and have a natural look that works well in an informal garden.

• Great in woodland gardens or as a shrub border
• These little shrubs easily transition between the sun and shaded border
• Ramble along slopes and the tops of retaining walls beautifully
• Add a lyrical beauty to a mixed shrub hedge
• Some lowest-growing forms are great edging!
• Lovely draping themselves over container edges or large planter focal points
• Wildlife and bird-friendly shelter, nesting & late-season food sources
• Pollinator-friendly blooms
• Berried branches are late-season interest & unique floral arrangement accents!

The shrubs can often create thickets by way of suckering and form low-growing colonies over time. While in their native habitat, they can form extensive naturalized groupings, rooting where the branching touches the ground.

These kinds of suckering shrubs are fantastic for erosion control and filling hard-to-mow hillsides!

Caring For Colorful Coralberry Bushes

Coralberry is an excellent deciduous shrub for a shady to partly shaded area. Except for a few varieties, and those shrubs planted in their coldest growing zones, it's recommended you avoid planting Symphoricarpos in full sun or harsh afternoon sun areas. Preferring afternoon shade, dappled shade, and full shade in the hottest of their favored hardiness zones.

Coralberry bushes tolerate poor soil and alkaline soils. They are heat and humidity-tolerant, as well as very cold-hardy!

Flowering on new wood, Coralberry should be pruned in the early spring or you'll risk lopping off those showy berries before they can even form. You can prune these shrubs each spring for size control in the early spring and remove suckers as needed, transplanting them to other areas of your landscape.

If Coralberry gets too leggy, the entire shrub can be cut back close to the ground and it will bounce back bushier and with more berries the next year. To prevent them from becoming leggy in the first place, simply renewal prune each spring, removing a third of the oldest branches each year every 3-5 years.

Then enjoy these pretty plants with their ornamental persistent berries for your birds and bouquets today!