After a few years of less than spectacular displays, autumn arrived and the leaves slowly fell away to reveal the hundreds of bright red berries I’d been hoping for. I was already imagining the ice-glazed fruits hanging from the silver branches, dusted with new fallen snow and graced by the occasional appearance of a few grateful birds sharing nature’s bounty in the depths of winter.

Less than a week later, still early in the fall, I was on the phone in the second floor office of my home, gazing out a window, and admiring the planting that had finally fulfilled its promise. Suddenly a flock of a few dozen robins mobbed the shrubs and, to my horror, stripped the plants in less than ten minutes!

I finished my phone call and walked outside to survey the damage, finding only a single remaining berry quivering on its stem. And as I watched tearfully, that one too fell from the branch.

Always the optimist I acquired a half-dozen I. v. ‘Red Sprite’, with the slight hope that if I achieve a critical mass of fruit the robins might just leave me enough for a passable winter display.

I’ve even thought about discreetly peppering the neighborhood with winterberry seedlings so that eventually the flocks’ attention might be diverted a bit from my yard! Of course in another ten years or so the Ilex-fed robins’ droppings might achieve the same thing.

So forgive me if my answer to, “Has the flock visited your garden?”, isn’t as joyful as you might hope.

Be careful what you wish for.