Do called Pyracantha berries turn into plants?

Nollie

I have a Pyracantha hedge on a terrace above my main border. Last year I spent ages picking up all the berries from the border in case they turned into mini monsters. This year the hedge is equally laden with, as yet, immature berries. As the birds don’t eat them all (maybe they are scared of the patrolling cats) do I need to keep picking them out of the border or is is safe to leave them be?

Nollie

Sorry don’t know where the ‘called’ bit of the title came from!!

RaspberryKiller

I'm guessing that's where their seeds live... So there 'might' be a chance?

Dovefromabove

The berries are winter food for birds and small mammals. I’d leave them where they fall.

If a few germinate it’s so much easier to use a hoe or even your fingers to remove a few plants than to collect so many seeds. 

Nollie

Wishful thinking then, to hope they might be sterile or at least poor germinaters?! Nobody touched the dropped berries last year and there was still quite a lot left on the branch. I left them for months before the tedious task of picking them up, even put some on the bird table but no takers. Maybe I will just leave them longer this year and clear up before I mulch in the spring.

plant pauper

I wish! I've never had one self-seeded yet and I seem to be rubbish at taking cuttings from them. 
It's strange that your birds won't eat them. My blackbirds are like great fat turkeys by the time the shrub is stripped. 

ForTheBees

One evolutionary strategy of some plants is that berry germination requires or is improved by a trip through an animals digestive system; this aids dispersal rather than the parent plant being overwhelmed by child plants. It doesn't apply to all berry bearing plants and I can't find anything on google to confirm if this applies to Pyracantha but nevertheless it faces the same issue of not wanting to compete with its seedlings. 

Fire

Mine has never seeded in my garden. Not once. And the birds never seem to eat the berries. They all wither and rot on the hedge.

Joyce21

Blackbirds scoff the orange berries first then the red berries. Have never had any "new" plants from berries.

plant pauper

Totally agree Joyce. Mine has orange berries and they must be like truffle to blackbirds. 

Nollie

I have blackbirds nesting directly opposite the hedge and lots around and about the garden, but they turn up their nose at the berries, as do all the rest of the birds. I can only deduce that there are tastier things to eat. Perhaps I will just leave them this year and see what happens. But I am a bit of a neat freak. It will be hard. I might need therapy