Beautyberry Banishes Bad Biting Bugs

[florida girl]

From the Mother Earth News. These grow naturally here.

Beautyberry Banishes Bad Biting Bugs

[kurt]

Very cool - if anyone knows of a nursery source or transplant info please post.

[liquorqueen]

This is great news and the article was interesting. I will definitely be rubbing some of the leaves on me while I'm out working in the yard as the "skitters" just love a bit of the liquorqueen. Thanks for the tip!

[Susan Horn]

I think that same issue of Mother Earth News has a list of top favorite vegetables to grow in home gardens, divided up in different regions of the country -- including the Gulf Coast!

Kurt, I think most of our locally owned nurseries offer or can order beautyberry.

Wax myrtle -- another hard-to-kill native -- is also said to repel insect pests, including fleas. It fixes nitrogen too, and can reduce or eliminate the need to add petrochemical-derived nitrogen.

[Smiling JOe]

Supposedly, the natives of this area knew the secrets of Beauty Berry. FloridaGirl, I must say that I am proud of you for looking for alternative methods of protecting yourself against insects.

[florida girl]

This plant is native here, you would know, the solution may be right under our noise!

[scooterbug44]

My yard is full of it ........................ and skeeters!

I like the way it looks so I cut it and use it as my "fresh flowers" inside, but I have yet to experience its bug repelling powers - even when standing in a bush of it!

[Smiling JOe]

You might need to break open the leaves and rub it on you.

[scooterbug44]

One would think my less than surgical shrub removal techniques & trimming would release its magical powers.

[florida girl]

Here's the article.

Beautyberry Banishes Bad Biting Bugs
By Barbara Pleasant

Warm weather brings out the big three of biting bugs: mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus, deer ticks that carry Lyme disease and, in warm climates, fire ants that can quickly take over your yard. Instead of using toxic DEET to protect yourself, wouldn’t it be great to use leaves gathered from a native shrub?

This is exactly what you can do with beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), a deciduous shrub of the southeastern woods best known for its braceletlike clusters of showy purple berries that ripen in fall. Compounds found in beautyberry leaves have shown amazing pest-repellent properties, proving the worth of the centuries-old practice of placing leaves under mule harnesses to deter biting insects.

In 2006, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Products Utilization Research Unit in Oxford, Miss., found that extracts from beautyberry leaves could match DEET for repelling mosquitoes. The next year, experiments showed that the active ingredients from the leaves (callicarpenal and intermedeol) provided 100-percent repellency of black-legged ticks for three hours. In 2008, the four-person research team, headed by chemist Charles Cantrell in Mississippi and entomologist Jerome Klun in Maryland, published research that added fire ants to the list of pests repelled by essential oil distilled from beautyberry leaves.

Cantrell says toxicity testing is needed to evaluate the safety of applying potent beautyberry compounds to human skin. “Plants containing these compounds have long been used as folk remedies with no ill effects that we know of, so I would not anticipate any harmful effects when plants are used in the traditional way,” he says. Fresh green leaves, crushed and rubbed on people or pets, often repel insects for a couple of hours.

American beautyberry is easily grown in moist, partial shade in Zones 7 to 9, and in protected sites near buildings in Zone 6. Among ornamental species, Cantrell notes that leaves of Japanese beautyberry (C. japonica, hardy to Zone 5) contain both compounds.

Container-grown plants of American beautyberry are widely available from native plant nurseries. Visit the Mother Earth News Seed and Plant Finder to find a source near you.

[JSSTMK]

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[florida girl]

I think that same issue of Mother Earth News has a list of top favorite vegetables to grow in home gardens, divided up in different regions of the country -- including the Gulf Coast!

Kurt, I think most of our locally owned nurseries offer or can order beautyberry.

Wax myrtle -- another hard-to-kill native -- is also said to repel insect pests, including fleas. It fixes nitrogen too, and can reduce or eliminate the need to add petrochemical-derived nitrogen.

I've always been curious about the Wax Myrtle, it has such a different fragrence.

[Susan Horn]

I've always been curious about the Wax Myrtle, it has such a different fragrence.

Another name for it is candleberry -- berries are boiled to bring out the wax which is used to make candles. I bet it takes a LOT of berries to make one little taper.