fuchsia-flowered gooseberry

Photo: Unknown — CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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.

Grown for its striking red, fuchsia-shaped, hummingbird-pollinated spring flowers rather than its fruit — berries are small, glandular-bristly and tart, edible but a minor, incidental food rather than a dessert fruit. Extremely spiny stems.

Hardiness

Zone 7–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

June–Aug

Mature size

Arching spiny shrub 1–4 m, near-evergreen in mild winters

Light

Grows in full-to-nearly-full shade in the wild (north-facing slopes, canyon bottoms), but tolerates more sun in cultivation with occasional water.

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Chaparral

Native range

Coastal central and southern California, and Baja California, Mexico.

Status

Ornamental

Years to fruit

1–2 yrs

Growth speed

Fast to moderate depending on source, reaching about 2 m height and spread.

Spacing

180 cm (71 in) apart — about 3.2 m² (35 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Small, glossy deep green, round to ovate with 3–5 large rounded lobes, to about 4 cm.

Root system

Fibrous, spreading by underground roots — useful for erosion and slope stabilization.

Fruit description

Small (~1–1.3 cm), red-orange berries densely covered in glandular bristles; tart to bland, low palatability.

Propagation

Seed (stratification improves germination, sow fresh in autumn) or semi-ripe cuttings 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.