North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

Thanks!  I have loads of yew, and am looking for something  
different.  The yews around the foundation don't have enough sun to  
fruit, but are very healthy.  However, I am looking for a taller/ 
narrower plant for this location.  Maybe I should buy a pair of  
rabbit eye blueberries and plant them in the back yard for a couple  
of years.  If they survive, I could then move them to the spots on  
either side of the garage, where I want to remove the cedar.  There's  
no tearing hurry.  I'll look into the first two eleagnus, too.

Ginda

On Dec 12, 2005, at 4:58 PM, Richard Moyer wrote:

> Ginda,
> Though in TN, I'm also in Zone 6.  Some things that work well for us:
> We pulled out our foundation plants and put in Rabbiteye  
> blueberries, where they get only about 1 hr direct sun a day..   
> Fall color is now at peak, plants covered with reds melding to  
> purple and orange.  Best color in our yard now for weeks, and as  
> Hal noted, leaves hang into the single digits.
>
> Yew (Taxus spp.) is an evergreen, tough, easily shaped, and has an  
> edible sweet-syrupy-piney fruit BUT the seed has potent  
> cardiotoxins.  Needs more sun to fruit than the two Eleagnus below,  
> but survives in shade, growing much more slowly.
>
> 3 ideas from the Eleagnus family:
> Eleagnus multiflora (goumi) is semi-evergreen, spring bloomer, June  
> fruit, silver-green foliage.  Lucille Whitman (Whitman Farms)  
> propagates and sells a large-fruited cultivar.  An easily shaped,  
> better behaved Eleagnus.  Ours do well under pawpaw and black  
> locust trees.
> Eleagnus pungens.  Oct-Nov bloom scent is heavy, intoxicating, M.  
> Dirr says similar to gardenia, definitely a draw for that time of  
> year.  Fruits hangs all winter and ripens in March here if mild,  
> into April.  Hence a first fruit.  The plant can be rangy if  
> unmanaged, throwing lanky suckers reaching into nearby limbs, but  
> have seen it locally as a well-shaped evergreen shrub, either as  
> individually shaped plants or a high, thin hedge.  This Eleagnus  
> can be invasive, climbing up, through and over anything above it.
> Hippophae (Sea buckthorn)
> Widely planted in Europe, Dirr says "fruit is as handsome as is the  
> soft grayish green foliage" .  Strangely, languishes in rich soil,  
> and thrives in poor sandy soil.  Have seen and tasted fruit in June  
> in western Oregon; some selections hold fruit into winter.  Need  
> male and females for pollination.  Drawback for your site may be  
> too much shade.
>
> All three of the above will sucker and spread if left alone, which  
> may be a disadvantage, or helpful in filling in.
>
> Richard Moyer
> Zone 6, East TN
>
>
>    Ornamental Blueberries (Ginda Fisher)
>  I have some white cedar foundation plantings that are getting
> overgrown.  I am thinking of removing them, and wondering what to
> replace them with.  It would be fun to put in something that fruits. .
> .  I am contemplating blueberries.
>
> I am in zone 6.  The location is on the south side of my house, but
> it's mostly shaded by oak trees, so I don't actually expect to get  
> much
> fruit.  I need something tall and narrow:  Mature width should be less
> than 4', and height could be 15' or so, and should be at least twice
> the width for esthetic reasons.
>
> Anyone have suggestions in a tall, narrow, northern blueberry?
> Preferably one with good fall color and red winter twigs?
>
> Any other fruity suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
> Ginda
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