Northern Bayberry

After back filling and lightly compacting the 50/50 mix of existing soil and compost give the Northern Bayberry a good deep watering. This is not to be rushed. Most of the water you put on the plant at first will run away from the plant until the soil is soaked. A general rule of thumb is to count to 5 for every one gallon of pot size. For example a one gallon pot would be watered until you count to 5 a three gallon pot would be 15 and so on. Check the plant daily for the first week or so and then every other day there after. Water using the counting method for the first few weeks. Gator bag Jr. can be used to help aid in this process and also provide plants with a good soaking due to the slow release of the water into the root-zone of the plant. Soaker Hoses can also be used to water when planting a long hedge.

Feeding your plants is probably the single most forgotten part of growing healthy long lasting plants. We recommend feeding your Northern Bayberry in the very early spring and again in mid fall after all new growth has hardened off. Bio-tone starter fertilizer is the best product to use at the time of planting. Northern Bayberry tend to use more nitrogen than some other plant families. Our ideal fertilizer schedule for you to use is as follows. Do an early spring fertilizer with a product such as Espoma Tree-tone at the recommended rate this will give the plant a boost of nitrogen that will be needed for healthy abundant foliage. Follow this up with a early summer application of Espoma Holly Tone, this will provide the necessary nutrients and raise the acid level in the soil which Northern Bayberry favor. Espoma products are easy to use, just sprinkle around the base of the plant and water it in. Be careful with products such as miracle-grow as these products can burn newly planted plants when not used at the recommended rates. Slow-release fertilizer can help prevent rapid sucker growth that is vulnerable to diseases and insects.

We highly recommend that you mulch your Northern Bayberry with either a ground hardwood mulch or a ground cypress mulch depending on your local availability. Any type of mulch will do but cypress or hardwood mulch will be of a higher quality and provide better nutrition overall as they breakdown. Mulching helps to keep weeds away which will compete with your new investment for water and nutrients. A 2 to 3 inch layer of mulch is sufficient but remember to take care not to cover any part of the stem of the plant with mulch. Its better to leave a one inch gap of space between the mulch and the stem or trunk of the plant.

Maintenance of Northern Bayberry is minimal once established. There are two schools of thought for pruning to enhance the red coloration of the stems. The first method of pruning is to remove 1/3 of the shrub each spring to eliminate the oldest branches as it is the newer stems that display the best coloration. The next method involves rejuvenating the entire shrub every 3 years or so by removing all of the branches to within 8″ of the ground. The flush of growth that ensues will be covered in Red Berries…of course you won’t really see it until the following fall when the leaves drop but you will be rewarded with a beautiful show. Either method is fine and occasionally its okay to cut the plant a little harder than you normally would shrubs. This is a plant that thrives on abuse.
As mentioned when to prune your Northern Bayberry is completely up to you the gardener. If I had to recommend a time it would be late winter after the winter interest portion of the season is over but before the flowers form. The reason for this is simple 1. you get to enjoy the wonderful show almost like fireworks shooting from the ground in the dreary winter days, and 2. the birds will reap the benefits of the fruit which is formed from the flowers. This is definitely one plant that has value for bird lovers in all zones that it grows.
There are two schools of thought, and quite a bit of debate, about larger pruning jobs. Some gardeners like to lop off all stems at a uniform height each year in early spring leaving branch stubs in the spring that flush out into a ball of growth in the spring. Most growers and researchers agree that only light pruning is necessary for plenty of berries, so the choice is really yours.