Saskatoon

Size, growth and what to expect

It grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. Most plants make a clump of stems 6 to 10 feet tall and as wide, though some reach 26 feet. It is fairly short-lived, but it sprouts again from the root crown. The oldest of 470 plants aged in western Montana was 85 years old.

Fragrant white flowers open in short clusters from April into June, just before or as the leaves unfold. The fruit ripens from June into August, purple-black, sweet and a third to half an inch across. It looks and tastes much like a blueberry, and it is eaten fresh or baked into pies, jams and syrup. Bears, game birds, songbirds and small mammals eat the fruit, and deer and elk browse the twigs.

It grows wild from Alaska south to California and New Mexico and east across the northern Plains to Minnesota, Iowa and Ontario. Its home is stream banks, rocky slopes, open woods and thickets. It is a plant of cold winters, and in Kentucky it is not considered winter hardy.

How to grow Saskatoon

Saskatoon wants full sun or light shade and a well-drained soil, sandy, loamy or clay, acid or alkaline. It fruits best in full sun, and it will not take wet ground. Give it an open, airy spot, since leaf spot is worst where the air stays damp. Set plants 6 feet apart, and keep each one 5 feet from a wall. Keep it 15 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Clean the seed from the fruit at once, before it ferments. Sow it outdoors in fall a quarter inch deep. For spring, hold it damp in the refrigerator for 90 to 180 days first. Many seeds wait until the second spring to come up. Give the seedlings light shade in their first summer.

Water weekly through the first summer, and in later dry spells while the fruit swells, since the crop needs steady moisture. Deer, elk and hares browse the twigs and bark, so guard young plants with wire for the first two or three winters. It needs little pruning beyond pulling suckers that stray from the clump.

Most plants set fruit with their own pollen, but some cannot, so plant two from different seed for a surer crop. Seedlings can take up to five years to bear, and plants from cuttings or suckers often begin at two to four. Birds take much of the crop, so cover the plants with netting as the berries start to swell. Juniper rust, leaf spot, fire blight and powdery mildew are its usual diseases, and sawfly larvae can bore into the fruit. Keep it away from junipers and red cedars, which carry the rust. The leaves and twigs contain cyanide compounds and can poison livestock that eat large amounts.