What are Some Native Trees and Shrubs That Provide Berries for Birds Through the Fall and Winter? 

You can help feed birds through the winter by setting up seed-filled feeders in your backyard, but birds love fruit too! Although birds are certainly adapted to forage for fruit, nuts and seeds in our natural ecosystems, there are multiple benefits for growing some of those native fruit-producing perennial trees and shrubs in your own yard or garden to provide additional food sources as well.  See below some examples that provide fruit (berries or hips), specifically for fall and winter: 

Trees 

• Mountain ash (Sorbus americana) 

  

  Mountain ash  

Shrubs 

• Gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa) 

• Red-osier dogwood (Cornus sericea) 

• Silky dogwood (Cornus amomum) 

• Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) 

• Common juniper (Juniperus communis) 

• Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) 

Eastern red cedar

• Pasture rose (Rosa carolina) 

• Virginia rose (Rosa virginiana) 

• Smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) 

• Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) 

• Viburnums spp. 

Maple-leaved viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium)

Hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides)

• Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) 

Winterberry

• Inkberry (Ilex glabra)