Photo: Lestat (Jan Mehlich) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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.
Fruit is bitter and mildly toxic raw, causing nausea or stomach upset if eaten in quantity — it needs cooking (as jelly or sauce) to be palatable, unlike the unrelated Sambucus elderberry, and birds eat it untroubled straight off the bush. ⚠ Raw fruit is mildly toxic — cook it.
Spread warning. Documented as naturalized/invasive in parts of North America (Great Lakes and northeastern states and provinces), where it forms dense thickets and is tracked by EDDMapS and the Invasive Plant Atlas of the US as European cranberrybush.
- Hardiness
- Zone 3–8
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Aug–Sept
- Mature size
- Shrub 2–4 m; containerable when young
- Light
- Full sun to partial
- Soil pH
- 5.5–7.0
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Native across Europe, North Africa, and western/northern Asia; introduced and now naturalized in parts of North America, including the Great Lakes region and Acadian forests.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Medium to fast
- Spacing
- 250 cm (98 in) apart — about 6.3 m² (67 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Opposite, maple-like, three-lobed leaves up to 10 cm long with coarsely toothed margins and flat-topped glands at the top of the petiole.
- Root system
- Fibrous and suckering, capable of resprouting strongly from the root crown after being cut back, contributing to thicket formation.
- Fruit description
- Glossy, translucent red drupes about 8 mm across in drooping clusters, persisting into winter; bitter, acidic, and mildly toxic raw, containing viburnin and tannins that cause the emetic effect.
- Propagation
- By seed (double dormancy, needing warm then cold stratification and often two years to germinate), by softwood cuttings under mist, or by hardwood cuttings taken in winter; also layers naturally where low stems touch soil.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile but BETTER WITH A PARTNER — plant 2 cultivars
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.
Growing guide
How it spreads. Regenerates vigorously from the base if cut down, suckers to form dense thickets, and self-seeds readily via birds and small mammals that disperse the fruit — behavior that has allowed it to naturalize and locally outcompete native vegetation in parts of North America.
Growing tips. Very cold-hardy (to about USDA zone 3) and adaptable to most moist, well-drained soils in sun to part shade. Highly susceptible to viburnum leaf beetle (Pyrrhalta viburni), which can defoliate and kill plants within a few seasons where the pest is established — monitor the undersides of leaves for larvae in spring.
Grow journal
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