Something ate all of my aronia berries last year for the first time ever. Thanks for the reminder. I'll need to pick them. My boys got into trouble. I'll have them pick them. Even better. I would imagine that they would store pretty well. I usually make juice with them: Part Orange juice and part aronia. It's fantastic. John S PDX OR

I was just noticing the other day they have completely cleaned off my Sparkleberry holly(hybrid between verticillata and serrata)while my Winter Red(only verticillata) is still loaded. I think Aronias are called Chokeberries because they aren't palatable, even to birds, unless there is absolutely nothing else!

Looks evergreen and arborescent in photo, leaves don't really look like they have the same coloring, texture and veining of winterberry either. Surely this is something more on the order of Dahoon holly. This post was edited by bboy on Sun, Dec 15, 13 at 16:55

We grow blueberries and the birds eventually discovered they were tasty. So, on one large plot (4 plants next to a fence), I built a blueberry cage. I used PVC pipe (8' tall, 12' long (and 8' + 4' length) and 6'wide) to build a cage. I cover the cage with heavy netting and attach the netting with plastic strapping connectors. I leave one end open, but clamped with s clothespins to allow entrance. Works great, although the price per blueberry is probably fairly high. Because of the size, I used 1" PVC pipe. Fortunately, the materials seem to last forever. It is also a pain to put together. I did spray paint the pipe in black, so that it is not so obtrusive. Today I invented the blueberry tepee. We have several blueberries that are two to three year old and are planted further apart than the much older big one. For these, I have constructed a tepee made of three 6' lengths of PVC pipe attached at the top with a connector. The pipe is covered with netting and then attached to the ground with garden staples. I used 1" pipe, since that was the size of pipe left over from the earlier project, but I think you could get by with 1/4" pipe for this one. Easy to build and should work well. Bryan