Uncommon Fruits

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Plants are either male or female, so to get fruit from a female vine, you must also plant a male vine. This one male can pollinate up to eight females. Some varieties such as Issai do not need pollination. Young plants are less cold-tolerant than mature plants, and sometimes are nipped back to the ground unless protected with a wrapping of burlap or straw.

Although persimmon, pawpaw, juneberry, gooseberry, and red currant hail from the four corners of the world, none is especially finicky as to site. The only condition all these plants ador is waterlogged soil. Otherwise, any reasonably fertile soil in full sun or even part shade will do. Since these plants also are native to woodlands or cold climates, they all also enjoy the cool, moist soil beneath a thick mulch of leaves or straw.

Delicious and Beautiful

Many "uncommon" fruits are overlooked because they are borne on ornamental trees, shrubs, and vines. Most varieties of juneberry, for example, have been chosen for their white or pink tinged flowers, or the fiery autumn show of their leaves.

Hardy kiwis are attractive plants that have clothed pergolas (see "MOTHER' Rustic Pergola" on page 62) on old estates since the turn of the century-how many visitors have passed beneath these pergolas, unaware of the delicious fruits hidden among the leaves? Persimmons and pawpaws have drooping leaves that give the trees a soft, languid appearance in summer, livened in fall as the leaves turn a clear yellow color. Even the bark of persimmon has a pretty checked pattern.

Other plants with ornamental qualities and tasty fruits include: cornelian cherry, a small tree clothed with yellow blossoms in early spring; maypop, an herbaceous vine with large, intricate, breathtaking flowers; lowbush blueberry, a ground hugging shrub with nodding white blossoms in spring, leaves that turn crimson in autumn, and stems that remain reddish through winter.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print