I was thinking of starting a thread on how to get anything out of beautyberries. I've had a couple for a couple of years now, and while they get to a few feet during the growing season, always die back to the ground in the winter.

Mine did not die back to the ground at all. I had one in NH that would sometimes. It never got as large as it should, but it would persist in coming back and was beautiful almost every fall. But, mine here would rarely finish their autumn cycle with those beautiful pink berries on leafless stems before a killing frost would do them in. The ocean keeps our autumns warm and wet, and it seemed to never get cold enough long enough for that beautiful beautyberry effect before a killing freeze. I will not miss them, even though I absolutely love this plant. I’ll enjoy it elsewhere.

MG, some are more cold tolerant than others. What variety are yours, and how are they sited in winter? They like full sun, but at the same time it seems in zone 5 an area with winter protection sure is helpful.

Thank you for reminding me that one of them is only rated to zone 6, Callicarpa 'plump and plentiful purple giant'. That actually seems to be what it is really called. It was a freebie, so I thought I might as well try it. The other one is Pearl Glam. That one seems to be generally considered a zone 5 plant, so it puzzles me. I don't have anywhere that is full, all day sun, but they get more than 6 hours of sun. I'll have to think about how exposed it is in winter. My most protected areas are behind the house, and get a lot of shade.

Stimulated by your post I wrote a not insignificant diatribe about beauty berries . But as they say ”the dog ate my homework” and Houzz ate my post.

Suffice it to say no good comes of a beautyberry owned by me. They are ugly until October ( or later) and just plain sad and disappointing when the berries fail to deliver the promised punch that would justify the real estate they occupied for 11 months. Full sun real estate no less.

Well, after watching the beautyberries for weeks, now there are new leaves budding from near the base. Now that my mind was at peace with their death, I’m not too excited about their life because they are just as you said, Marie!

I have a Japanese maple about the same size as yours that suffered lots of dieback. Several viburums died on me too. Last year was a difficult gardening season.

Interesting that you viburnums are suffering. I have a native viburnum (cranberry maybe?) that I planted as a small sappling in maybe 2018. Just six feet from it is a mature cranberry viburnum. My sapling has 1/10 as many leaves, and right now the leaves are skeletons. I don’t know why something would eat ONLY that bush since the really healthy one is right there ready and waiating. Not sure it will live.

I love Viburnums and started out with probably a half dozen different varieties. They seem to be a match for my conditions. But one after the other I had issues with them and I only have one left - a 'Wentworth' variety, that I've had to cut to the ground due to some pest infestation that did the same thing skeletonized the foliage. It came back and it's about 6ft tall this year and had maybe 3 blooms on it, [g] From a distance, I haven't noticed any leaf damage yet, but I haven't really given it a good look.

I have several different types of Viburnums. The ones that I lost were Winterthur. Others sailed through the drought without a problem,