Beautiful bittersweet

I have always loved bittersweet.  I realize it can be invasive and can become parasitic -- see this article: Bittersweet: Friend or Foe? if you want to learn more -- but it is so beautiful.  (I'm sure there's a spiritual application there which I may eventually try and write about.  But for now, see a similar thought in The Return of the Periwinkle, if you are interested.)

As far as I remember, no bittersweet grew around the acreage where I grew up.  I do recall that my mother also loved the look of bittersweet and would often look far afield to gather some of it in the fall.   I remember one year that she and my dad made some very special pins to donate to a craft bazaar.  They were small wooden ovals, lightly stained and finished, and to these, in a pleasing arrangement, they glued tiny hemlock cones, yellow tansy heads, and bittersweet berries.

In more recent years, I've not seen bittersweet growing in our area, but one fall we had stopped at a rest area in the southern part of our state and saw a pickup truck with the bed overflowing with bittersweet vines.  I marveled that the driver would dare leave it unattended while he or she was in the building!

But last year, I saw some orange berries growing on a stone wall near my dad's house.  When I stopped for a closer look, I found bittersweet!  And this year it is back.  Time to hunt up a transferware pitcher.  You will find my visual inspiration for that in this post on my friend Vee's blog.

Here are just a few more photos:

You can see the stone wall peeking through here

Does bittersweet grow where you live?  Do you decorate with it?