PLANT OF THE MONTH:
California Coffeeberry
Frangula californica
IN THE GARDEN:
An evergreen shrub that grows fast to 6-8’. It is called coffeeberry because its berries contain seeds which look like coffee beans. Coffeeberry is an excellent foliage plant with showy fruit. Its branches take on a beautiful reddish color and has beautiful deep green lustrous leaves, well suited to pruning and landscape work. This makes it an excellent choice for an informal hedge or to create a screen. Tiny flowers attract hummingbirds and native bees in spring. Berries go from green to red to chocolate in fall and are consumed eagerly by birds. Great for a bird garden and butterfly garden.
ECOLOGICAL VALUE:
Attracts butterflies, birds and bees. Drought tolerant and deer resistant.
NATIVE DISTRIBUTION:
This common shrub is native to California and southwestern Oregon. It is found in a wide variety of settings and habitats across the state, including coastal strand, foothill woodland slopes, sage scrub flats, chaparral, evergreen forest in mountain areas, rocky outcrops, sandy areas, stream banks, pinyon-juniper woodland in desert transition, and creosote bush scrub in high desert (calscape.org).
AT THE NURSERY:
We currently have 209 in D-40 containers for $6.75 each and 20 in 5-gallons pots (recently bumped up on 8/31/18) for $29.00 each.
