I saw a goji berry plant for sale at a local nursery. It is not uncommon to see stuff for sale that is less than ideal for our zone available so I figure I would look it up first. The problem now is that I’m seeing conflicting info on them, some claiming it to be hardy to zone 5, others to zone 3. The bush in question doesn’t seem to be a named variety or at the very least it is just labeled as goji berry, Lycium barbarum.
Anybody growing these in a cold zone? If so what’s your experience with them?
They do well in some pretty harsh regions of China. I have a friend here in Anchorage who has a goji berry- an unnamed variety- and it does great- it’s probably one of his best plants.
My wife puts some goji berries in hot tea and sometimes uses them for cooking. I guess you would want the berry for the health benefits. I don’t particularly enjoy the flavor of goji berry. If you lined up an apple, gooseberry, strawberry, honeyberry, and goji berry, and you were hungry for a snack, you would eat the goji berry last.
Goji berries will thrive in the majority of the US and Canada. They are hardy to USDA zone 5, with maximum low temperature around -18 degrees F/-27 degrees C
Zone 3 its a bit too low for most fruit plants. You can try what i do with citrus and might work for you before winter comes much the base and wrap he plant like you would do with figs, as long as the root its safe the plant will grow again, and in time when the root gets big and beautifull it will be strong enough to grow from 0 each year and make some fruit ( like its usualy done with wine vines in cold climates )
Hi! I have a goji here north of the border and I can testify that those are tough, Well, mine is a good example as it is blooming at mid-October and their terrible-tasting fruits are ready about 2 to 3 weeks later. Flowers and fruits are pretty to look at but the taste is not interesting to me at all. We got - 33,2 Celsius here last winter and the goji was totally unharmed. My final opinion? You can pass with no regrets… but if you still want to acquire one come to my place with a shovel and take it away from me!
named cultivars of them are z5. unnamed are z3. i grew one from seed 2 springs ago and planted it out this spring in a less than ideal spot. its growing out nicely and survived -40f last winter in a pot. how much snow protection it had i dont know? i heard they werent too tasty but ill dry them and throw them in my trail mixes or the chics will get them and the leaves. they love aronia.
We have tried Black Goji here. Some transplants, and some seedlings. None of them made it thru a winter here. I don’t think it was the cold, so much as succumbing to damp/snow mold after being under snow for 4 months. A lot of winters our ground here never really freezes. Phoenix tears grows like crazy here, but it tastes gross. Haven’t tried any others so far.
Didier, welcome aboard. I did pick the unknown overprice variety from the nursery, I’ll see how it does. This is not a good test year because we got a solid slab of snow coverage that will stay in place for the rest of the season. This is the best year for ground insulation I have seen.
Heck this is what I was greeted with coming back from vacation:
About four feet of snow got blown around in strong winds, followed by a warm up to solidify things in place. Right now I can walk over the bush which is safely encased in it.
You see the truck at the top of my driveway? The most effective way was to create a channel to one side, then use post hole shovels to eat into the slab one chunk at a time. Once the channel of rubble was wide enough I was able to use the truck to crush the snow boulders. From there the snow blower could finally take over.
I’m a masochist for outdoor physical labor, that was a nice challenge. Having said that I’m still glad this is not a common occurrence. We got more snow by the 14th of December than in the entire winters of the last 30 years, and yet we haven’t had any snow since.
One way to get a hint about the cold hardiness is to check the observation map on inaturalist. There’s more pins from more populated areas, but for example there’s at least few photos of large goji berry bushes in Canada zone 3 areas. I’ve seen them growing around Brandon, Mb (zone 3). Hoping to collect some local seed this fall. Matrimony Vine (Lycium barbarum) · iNaturalist Canada
