I planted my new Seaberry a couple of months ago and it has started leafing out. I really want a row of these running parallel with my row of Autumn Olive creating an alley for fruit trees, so I just ordered an Amber Dawn, Botanica, Garden’s Gift, & a Klim’s Prize.
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Is it possible that my seaberry self-pollinated? I planted a male and female seaberry a few years ago and the male died. I didn’t have the heart to chop down the female because it is a pretty tree despite knowing it wouldn’t fruit. I didn’t seven notice any flowers in the spring but noticed berries today! How did this happen? It is an Eva seaberry from OGW.
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There’s a self fertile cultivar from germany called Friesdorfer Orange. There’s also an interesting larger tree form with less thorns called Hippophae Saclifolia.
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If getting half a handful could be considered pollinated…
Some plants that require pollination actually manage put out a token amount of fruits. For the purpose of producing fruit that is hardly considered self fruitful. The seeds if any are usually sterile.
While males have more obvious flowers, I’ve found the female flowers can only be seen upon VERY close inspection. There really isn’t much to see aside from a tiny pistol atop a tiny ovary nestled among the leaves for the females.
Yes, the flowers are early and inconspicuous.
The female plants will make a few fruits with no males around, but I doubt you would ever get significant crops.
Speaking of blooms, last year my male bloomed for a very long time (as it allways did), but close inspection revealed that despite its long bloom time it still fully finished blooming before my mature female bush began blooming. It’s no wonder I haven’t been getting any yields.
For too long nurseries have been selling un-named males as if just any old male will do. In fact we should be establishing bloom charts and selecting specific male clones to ensure good bloom overlap with specific female clones.
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The male blooms, that I describe as looking like tiny coin purses, will emit pollen when disturbed, but for a much shorter time than the fully formed male flowers remain intact on the shrub.
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I’ve never noticed any fruit on my seaberry…
Heck, I have 3 autumn olive plants (none under 6 feet tall) along with a goumi and a Silverberry (Elaeagnus x eblingei) and while I get goumi fruit, but nothing on the others…
Is it possible that congested growing conditions might inhibit fruiting? I never notice bees on these plants during bloom. Perhaps they are wind pollenated. Anyone know?
I can say that I made the mistake of planting the male and female seaberry too close to eachother. Seaberries self-prune if not getting at least 80% sun. Whole plants will die if being shaded to less than 50% sun. I’ll look closely in the next week to see if any fruit are growing on the Seaberry (I don’t recall what variety I had as I bought and planted a couple females).
Scott
Exclusively wind pollinated.
I had 2 males and 3 females in a single 15-foot row. They fruited heavily even when mature and crowding each other. My row was east-west, and southesr exposure.
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