gummy gooseberry

Photo: Peter Stevens from Seattle — CC BY 2.0 · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

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

Grown mainly as a native/pollinator-garden ornamental for its large, showy, fuchsia-like maroon-and-white spring flowers, which draw bees and hummingbirds. Fruit is a sticky, dark purple, spiny berry — edible and good in jam, but secondary to the plant's ornamental value.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

June–Aug

Mature size

Spiny deciduous shrub 0.6–1.5 m

Light

Partial to full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Southern Vancouver Island and British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to northern California, mostly along the coast.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

1–2 yrs

Growth speed

Fast.

Spacing

120 cm (47 in) apart — about 1.4 m² (16 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Round-ovate, 3–5-lobed, 1.5–2.5 cm, shallowly heart-shaped base, usually downy and glandular beneath.

Root system

Shallow and fibrous, the bulk of it in the top 30–45 cm and spreading wider than the bush is tall. Two consequences worth planning for: it dries out quickly in a hot summer, so mulch and water rather than cultivate around it, and low branches that touch the ground will often layer themselves, which is the easiest way to get a new plant.

Fruit description

Sticky, dark purple to reddish-brown berries covered in gland-tipped bristles; generally unpalatable, though occasionally eaten historically by some Native American tribes.

Propagation

Seed (cold-stratify about 120 days at 35°F) or hardwood cuttings in autumn, semi-hardwood in summer.

Pollination

Hermaphrodite flowers, insect-pollinated. No self-compatibility study for this species specifically: cultivated currants and gooseberries are largely self-fruitful, but controlled work on wild western Ribes found several species outright self-sterile, so a single plant is not a safe assumption. Plant two.

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.