American highbush cranberry

Photo: Edward Tremel (Edward Tremel) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 2 through 7

Harvest calendar

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

The true North American highbush cranberry — not a true cranberry (Vaccinium) at all despite the name, but a viburnum that converges on the same bright-red, acidic fruit. Tart and cranberry-like, excellent for jelly and sauce, and it improves markedly after the first hard frost; raw fruit can still cause mild stomach upset if eaten unripe or in quantity. This catalog previously carried it twice, the second time under Viburnum opulus var. americanum — see the note where that entry used to be.

Hardiness

Zone 2–7

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Aug–Sept, persisting into winter

Mature size

2–4 m tall and wide; containerable when young

Light

Full sun to partial shade

Soil pH

5.0–7.5 (acidic to neutral)

Environment

Boreal to cool temperate

Native range

Northern North America, from New Brunswick and Quebec west across Canada to British Columbia, south to New York, the Great Lakes states, South Dakota and Oregon — swampy woods, bogs, lake margins and streambanks.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate, 30–45 cm/year

Spacing

250 cm (98 in) apart — about 6.3 m² (67 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Opposite, maple-like, three-lobed, to about 12 cm, irregularly toothed, with flat-topped glands where the blade meets the petiole — the key feature separating it from V. opulus.

Root system

Fibrous and moderately suckering, tolerant of the wet, poorly drained soils of its swamp and lake-margin habitat.

Fruit description

Shiny, translucent red drupes 6–12 mm across in flat-topped clusters that persist into winter; tart and cranberry-like, softening and losing bitterness after frost, each with one flattened seed.

Propagation

Seed (double dormancy — warm stratification followed by cold, often taking two winters), softwood cuttings under mist in early summer, hardwood cuttings in the dormant season, or layering.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated, with showy sterile outer florets drawing pollinators to the small fertile flowers within. Self-fertile enough to set some fruit alone, but sources disagree on how much — cross-pollination clearly improves set, so plant two or three distinct seedlings or clones if you want a real crop.

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.