strawberry tree

Photo: Wendy Cutler from Vancouver, Canada — CC BY 2.0 · source

Survives zone 7 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Strawberry tree — gritty and bland-sweet; for jam and liqueur.

Hardiness

Zone 7–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Oct–Dec — ripens 10–12 months after flowering, so ripe fruit and new flowers appear together

Mature size

Small evergreen tree or large shrub 5–10 m, occasionally to 12 m; slow, and good in a large container for years

Light

Full sun to partial

Soil pH

5.0–7.8 (acid to distinctly alkaline)

Environment

Mediterranean

Native range

Mediterranean basin — Iberia, France, Italy, the Balkans, North Africa and the Near East — with a disjunct Atlantic population in south-west Ireland

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Slow

Spacing

400 cm (157 in) apart — about 16 m² (172 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, oblong-lanceolate, 5–10 cm long, dark glossy green and leathery with finely serrated margins and a short red petiole.

Root system

Deep and spreading, with a woody lignotuber at the base — a carbohydrate store that lets the tree resprout after fire, with recorded post-wildfire resprouting success above 80% in the first year. In the garden the lignotuber means a hard-pruned or frosted plant usually comes back from the base.

Fruit description

Round warty berry 1.5–2 cm across, ripening from green through yellow and orange to deep red over 10–12 months. Soft granular flesh, mildly sweet and slightly gritty — pleasant but bland, which is what the epithet unedo ("I eat one") is usually taken to mean. Best cooked into jam or fermented; overripe fruit ferments on the tree.

Propagation

Seed needs cold stratification — around 60 days at 4°C gives good germination, and germination is poor without it. Semi-hardwood cuttings taken in July root best (up to about 87% in trials with IBA and mist), with November cuttings on bottom heat a weaker second.

Pollination

Self-fertile

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.