Lycium carolinianum

 

e-mail: plcrnu@comcast.net
 
Home
Botanical Tags
Coastal
Coffee
Directions
Feedback
Flowering Trees & Shrubs
Fragrant Plants
Fruit Trees
Grasses
Groundcovers
Hammock
In the Shadehouse
Links
Managing Your Plants
Misc. Tropical Plants
Our Nursery
Palms
Plant List
Recent Landscaping Jobs
References
Screening 
Services
Search
Street Trees
Stoppers
Vines
What about the environment?
Xeriphytes
Home

 

Christmasberry   Lycium carolinianum

Christmasberry is a super salt- and drought-tolerant plant.  It grows along dunes and at the edges of salt ponds throughout the southeastern U.S. in Zones 7-11.

Lovely lavender flowers develop into cheerful crimson berries, about 1/2" across.  The berries are edible (but they are bird-preferred, not for human-consumin'). 

Like other members of the nightshade family, christmasberry has a vine-like, cascading growth habit.

  It generally reaches a height of about 7 feet or so before the branches become heavy and start to droop, eventually cascading to the ground, and sending out new roots to stabilize itself. 

New plants develop from secondary branches and the whole plant moves itself along the ground.  This is just the effect you want next to your seawall, or across your dunes.  

Try some as an alternative to Scaevola, which is fine for a while, but eventually gets too high and has to be cut and then looks terrible.  You just won't have that problem with christmasberry, with its elegant, needle-like leaves.

Before poinsettias became popular, old ladies used to ask, "Have you got your christmasberries yet?"

As you drive into our nursery, you will see the christmasberries in 20-gal. pots (in the mid-ground of the photo at left, just behind  yellow-flowered tickseed), contributing nicely to the landscaping effect.
We have plants available in several different sizes.  Come on in and get the ones that fit your needs.
Above left, christmasberries in 3-gal., about 3' high.  Above right, in 7-gal., about 6' high.  Below, two views of plants in 20-gal. pots. These are 6'-8' high and ready to be released into your landscaping project.

 

Plant Creations

305-248-8147

Last updated:  01/22/2008