Whether you call them juneberries, serviceberries, shadberries, or saskatoon berries, you have to agree, the fruit of Amelanchier species are delicious. The fruit on the trees in the Ypsi-Arbor area are just approaching peak ripeness. If you've never tried one, you totally should. They taste like blueberry applesauce and are one of my favorite native fruits.
They make excellent jam, though it is necessary to run the pulp through a sieve (seeds). We planted one just for this purpose and had a hilarious run-in with a squirrel who wanted to claim our crop. We draped the entire tree with bird netting. He was able to penetrate the netting but not to exit. A very angry squirrel! We had to remove the netting and extricate him. Bad words were said on his side, laughter on ours.
ReplyDeleteAnd they are wonderful yard trees - not too big (25 feet for the single-stem variety, somewhat more for the multi-stem kind), relatively fast-growing, spring flowers. They'll remind you of birch trees in terms of dappled shade. They are not easy to find at nurseries for some reason, but worth grabbing when you see them (English Gardens had three this year as far as I could tell).
ReplyDeleteThey are one of my absolute favorites for native landscaping. Great 4 season color: beautiful spring flowers, fruit in the summer, lovely deep orange in the fall and attractive bark for the winter!
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