Issai Purple Beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Issai’)

• Ravishing Glossy Lavender Berries
• Fall Color and Vibrance
• Berries Last into Winter
• Great Food Source for Fall Birds
• Low Maintenance
• Excellent Foundation Planting
• Pollinator-Friendly
• Delicate and Delightfully Petite Blush-Pink Blooms
• Full Sun Best For Fruiting

Vivid, vibrant, eye-popping: pick your favorite adjective and it will work for the Issai Purple Beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Issai’). This compact shrub makes a huge impact with its brilliant purple berries that gleam, shine, and bring a blast of violet to the garden.

This beautyberry will blow you away and your local wildlife will appreciate the luscious lilac berries that will keep them full after other food sources have faded.

What makes the Issai Purple Beautyberry one of the best beautyberry varieties you can buy? When it comes alive with its bluish-violet berries, it looks like it’s dripping in jewels. These abundant clusters of grape-purple berries truly pop.

In fact, they almost glow against its bright green foliage with a high-gloss sheen. And these berries often stay intact as the Issai Purple Beautyberry’s foliage succumbs to winter.

These berries look like stunning beads. They’ll attract your attention and add rare hues to your garden.

While this delightful shrub only shakes and shimmies in the breeze, it does come alive when your neighborhood birds learn of its presence. Birds absolutely adore the Issai Purple Beautyberry’s berries. What birds dine on beautyberries? Mockingbirds, robins, towhees, quails, and thrashers. This shrub is a true wildlife habitat-must.

While not as brilliant or showy as its berries, the Issai Purple Beautyberry does bloom with whimsical pink flowers. These petite blush-colored flowers look like they were inspired by fairies–these clustered blooms are spritely with long, thin stamen and delicate petals.

And these peppy flowers may look like they belong in a make-believe fairy-fantasy land, but they will attract real winged creatures to your garden, too. Bees, butterflies, and other beneficial pollinators are known to dance about on these sweet blooms.

The Issai Purple Beautyberry’s riveting show is made more dramatic by its lance-shaped bright green foliage, spaced evenly and symmetrically between berry clusters.

These yellow-green leaves set off the berries and add additional interest to the garden. And when fall arrives, you can enjoy the Issai Purple Beautyberry foliage’s subtle yet pleasing purplish overcast.

Not only does this amazing plant look like it’s dressed for a party, but it is also quite resilient. The Issai Purple Beautyberry is easy to grow and offers some drought tolerance. It grows in an even mounding habit.

How to Use the Issai Purple Beautyberry in the Landscape

A more appropriate question may be, “How can’t you use the Issai Purple Beautyberry in your garden?” This remarkable shrub is extremely versatile. You can use the Issai Purple Beautyberry in the front yard, backyard, commercial landscaping, or even as a large potted plant on your patio.

Use your Issai Purple Beautyberry as a specimen beside your driveway or mailbox. Because this shrub thrives in full sun or partial shade, it can be grown as a foundation planting or as a showy and productive border.

The Issai Purple Beautyberry makes a stunning addition to your mixed shrub border.

Create a breathtaking spectacle with a mass planting of these bright and cheerful shrubs. The close proximity of these lovely plants will make their berries multiply from cross-pollination.

One of the best attributes of the Issai Purple Beautyberry is that it is quite pest and disease tolerant. It also is not a favorite among deer, so you can plant it along your woodlands.

Tips for Care

The Issai Purple Beautyberry loves to shine bright in full sun, but it will also thrive in partial shade. When planted in shade, it may become leggier and form a looser mound. It also is quite tolerant of different soil conditions but performs best in medium-moisture soil that drains wells.

Even though the Issai Purple Beautyberry is somewhat drought-tolerant, you will want to keep an eye on it and water it during extremely hot or dry periods.