Sand cherry

Photo: Super cyclist at English Wikipedia — Public domain · source

Survives zone 3 through 8

Harvest calendar

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

A genuine dune and beach plant, native almost exclusively to sandy, gravelly ground around the Great Lakes. Rich, pleasantly acid flavour once fully ripe, sometimes slightly bitter — good eaten out of hand as well as preserved. ⚠ Kernels/pits cyanogenic.

Hardiness

Zone 3–8

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

July–Aug

Mature size

Low, multistemmed, about 0.6 m tall by 1 m wide (2 x 3 ft)

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

5.5–7.5 (mildly acid to mildly alkaline) — a true sand-and-gravel specialist

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Northern and eastern United States and eastern Canada — concentrated around Lake Michigan and sand prairies of northern Illinois and Indiana; dunes, beaches and outwash plains.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Slow to moderate

Spacing

150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, narrowly spoon-shaped, 3–6 cm, dull green above and distinctly paler beneath, finely toothed toward the tip.

Root system

Shallow and fibrous, suckering modestly from the crown; grown on its own roots rather than grafted, so what you plant is what you get. Sits happily on sandy ground and resents waterlogging.

Fruit description

Reddish- to purplish-black, 1–1.5 cm, rich and pleasantly acid

Propagation

Seed (2–3 months cold stratification), hardwood cuttings in July–August, softwood cuttings in spring, or spring layering.

Pollination

Self-fertile, insect-pollinated.

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.