Brilliance, by the bough

IT’S all gardener and dedicated birder Ken Gilliland can do to whisper with restraint. “Early this morning, I counted 75 quail,” he says excitedly. “Look, there’s one now on that log.”

Quail Hollow, as Gilliland and wife Rhonda have dubbed their rustic Tujunga garden, pulsates from dawn to dusk with the noise and flurry of birds -- wild birds drawn to high limbs for nest building, an artificial spring and small waterfall cascading down a slope, and, perhaps most important, dense shrubs that provide a seemingly perpetual supply of food in the form of berries.

English holly -- that prickly bush with the classic red fruit -- is an icon of Christmastime, but not at the Gillilands’. As volunteer webmasters for the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers & Native Plants in Sun Valley (www.theodorepayne.org), where they have an inside scoop on which plants do best in cultivation, the couple designed their landscape with an emphasis on California natives.

For them, attracting birds with colorful berries means thinking beyond English holly.

Come winter, the toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia, a chaparral native also known as California holly) sports Ferrari-red berries that put traditional Christmas holly to shame.

Toyon fruit are massed at the branch tips, where birds can easily spot and reach them. The berries hold well on the bush and prove resilient when cut for holiday decor. And unlike traditional holly (Ilex), toyon’s foliage is prickle-free.

California holly is just one of many easy-to-grow natives that produce bird-tempting fruit in a spectrum of colors and throughout the four seasons.

As the last winy toyon berries are devoured -- yes, birds do get tipsy on the fermented fruit -- a tasty rainbow of native currants and shiny bronze manzanitas (literally “little apples”) start to glow.

Birds depend on these staples from midwinter through spring. The summer fruit plate includes purple grapes, blue barberries and yellow honeysuckle.

Ghostly snowberries, orangy rose hips and scarlet madrone are ready to eat in autumn and early winter.

Though flowering and subsequent fruiting times vary in response to temperature, elevation and water, the sequence is quite dependable.

“Berries add so much to every season,” says Jeff Bohn, co-owner of Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano. “They change the whole look of the plant.”

“Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica) is very plain until the berries come on. You can barely see the flowers, but the fruit smell and look just like coffee beans, and change colors as they slowly dry on the plant.”

Bohn adds that fleshy berries -- currants, elderberries, grapes -- drop quickly, if the birds don’t get to them first. But woodier fruit, such as manzanita and mission manzanita, Xylococcus bicolor, hold for a long time.

Regardless of berry type, says Ken Gilliland, the result is the same: “Plant natives and birds will come. When we moved in, we counted 40 different bird species on the property.

Since adding the natives, the list has grown to 80 -- an extraordinary number for a site with no natural water source.”

Most songbirds and all members of the thrush family love berries, he says. Thrashers, jays and robins eat the “arctos” (Arctostaphylos, common name manzanitas). All the birds seem to love elderberries (Sambucus) and gooseberries and currants (Ribes).

“Snowberries taste like chalk and are the berry of last resort, eaten when everything else is gone, which is nice because I think they’re most beautiful,” Gilliland adds.

Yes, gardeners too have preferences.

Barbara Eisenstein, horticultural outreach coordinator at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, is fond of Mahonia ‘Golden Abundance,’ a hybrid barberry with “spectacular spring flowers, blue summer berries, glossy green leaves, coppery new growth and great fall color. And, though evergreen, the old foliage turns bright red before it drops.”

Dense, thorny thickets of Mahonia, Ribes and wild rose also provide necessary cover for small birds and protection from hawks and other raptors.

Eisenstein recommends coffeeberry as an alternative to ubiquitous Indian hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis indica), and she says summer holly, Comarostaphylis diversifolia, is underappreciated.

“It looks similar to toyon but does everything at the opposite time of year.

“The fruit of Vitis californica ‘Roger’s Red,’ a California grape with exquisite red fall foliage, was really delicious this year,” she says. “Golden currants (Ribes aureum) are delicious in pancakes. And they’re so pretty as they ripen, becoming more and more golden with little hints of red, just like the flowers.”

Of course no fruit or berry, native or otherwise, should be eaten unless you’re absolutely positive it’s safe. Two other cautions for the berry-plant gardener: Avoid pesticides that can render the fruit toxic to birds and other wildlife, and don’t be a neat freak. Forget deadheading. Spent flowers give way to fruit and berries.

Gardeners are always surprised when they start growing berry-bearing natives, says Tree of Life’s Bohn.

“They expect the plants to be most glorious in full flower,” he says, “but they’re really in full glory when in fruit.”

Lili Singer can be reached at home@latimes.com.

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Jolly all year-round

Prickly sprigs of red-berried English holly may add cheer to the holiday season, but boughs of toyon are equally jolly. In fact, a garden with toyon and other California native plants can provide year-round color. Want birds? Plant a mix with successive ripening times for continual avian visits. Consider the following:

Winter/spring staples

Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia), also known as California holly. An adaptable evergreen shrub or small tree. Great clusters of small white flowers are followed by masses of pea-sized fruit in red, orange, yellow or gold. ‘Davis Gold’ is an exceptional yellow-berried cultivar.

Currants and gooseberries (Ribes). Currants are thornless; gooseberries are well-armed. Try golden currant, R. aureum var. gracillimum, a thicket-former with red-tinged yellow blossoms and orangy fruit; the upright pink-flowering currant R. sanguineum var. glutinosum, with blue-black fruit; or the arching fuchsia-flowered gooseberry, R. speciosum, with spiny crimson fruit. All are drought-deciduous.

Manzanita (Arctostaphylos). A classic Californian with exquisite form, foliage and bark. Fragrant white-to-pink urn-shaped blossoms yield glossy red or brown manzanitas, or “little apples” in Spanish. Dozens of species and cultivars are available, all evergreen. They range from ground cover to massive shrub.

Summer/fall bounty

Barberry (Mahonia, also sold as Berberis). Evergreen shrubs with dazzling foliage, radiant yellow flowers and waxy grape-like fruit. Try the upright M. ‘Golden Abundance,’ with blue berries; M. nevinii, also called Nevin’s Barberry or Nevin Mahonia, a fine barrier plant with red to orange fruit; or creeping barberry, M. repens, a blue-berried ground cover with holly-like foliage.

California grape, Vitis californica, and desert grape, V. girdiana. Big burly vines with plentiful purplish fruit.

California wild rose, Rosa californica. Fragrant single pink blossoms precede shiny red-orange hips. Thorny thickets provide shelter for birds.

Coffeeberry, Rhamnus californica. A neat shrub with small yellow-green flowers and fabulous fruit that morph from green to pink, red and black as they ripen. Densely branched redberry, R. crocea, provides excellent shelter for birds and has tiny yellow-green flowers and stunning scarlet fruit.

Creek dogwood (Cornus sericea, also sold as C. stolonifera). A deciduous shrub with scarlet stems, tightly bunched white blossoms and pea-size bluish-white berries. Fall and winter fare, not summer.

For more information

Consult the new book “California Native Plants for the Garden” by Carol Bornstein, David Fross and Bart O’Brien.

Call or e-mail the native plant help line operated by Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, rsabg.hortinfo@cgu.edu, (909) 624-0838.

-- Lili Singer