I’m nearby in Denver proper. I’ve got an Aurora, Tundra, and Sugar Mountain Blue. Both are alive and produce, but they have been very slow growing. It could be the climate, but it could also be me…
I actually think your elevation and (I’m guessing) slightly cooler temperatures might be beneficial for honeyberries.
I’m not sure how many honeyberries you would be interested in, but if it’s a larger quantity, we could always look into a Front Range group buy as they are trying to do with Hartmann’s on the east coast; I’d be interested in helping round out an order if there’s enough interest.
every thing that’s fairly easy to root i just stuck in a bare spot into my clay soil w/ 1 bud sticking out. mulched it heavy. and it rooted. some i watered some i didn’t. i stuck these in a mulched raised bed also covered with 4in. of snow. cleared a spot. stuck the scion to 1 bud. buried back in snow. ill let you guys know how it turned. out. the ground hadn’t froze yet and didn’t get really cold until early dec. so had time under there to put down roots. if this works good ill be doing this with cuttings of other honeyberries in my nursery bed in the fall.
Hi All, this is a very interesting thread. I planted my first honeyberry almost five years ago (unknown variety), and it gives great fruit now. I have seven HB bushes in my garden now, and I ordered three more for my new allotment plot. I am hoping to propagate some from cuttings in my garden to add to the new plot. The ones I have are Silginka, Wojtek, Atut, two Kamtschaticas, and my oldest two are unknown (one is early and the other is “late”). The new ones I ordered are Uspiech, Siniczka, and Honeybee. It has taken a few years to get more flowers and fruit on the original plants. I love the tart flavour, so looking forward to more yields in the next few years. My winter is not terribly cold, but February has a few frosts (to a low of -5 Celsius maybe), and the flowers are often coming out and surviving them. Summer doesn’t get very hot, and they seem to like that.
its good you dont get the heat. they really dont like that. im in z4 U.S and when it gets over 80f the leaves brown. warmer than that they drop and leaf out again once it cools. my oldest bush survived -40f/ -40c with no damage.
The fruits are highly valued and popular in our country, so I don’t have to worry about selling the fruits. We process and freeze a lot. I’ll give some to my family and neighbors. And at home we have very valuable fruits all year round, processed in various ways.
I have planted about 300 shrubs and I started growing them 22 years ago. I pick most of the fruit myself. I have it broken down on my land. I have an experimental part and I am constantly changing varieties there, so the shrubs are of different sizes and therefore of different fertility. Well, the varieties that have worked for me, so I’m planting on the other part of the land, but they haven’t yet reached full fertility. Thus, not all shrubs reach full fertility. Thus, a third of the shrubs partly reach full fertility. The others are either rejuvenated and cut down to the ground, some I liquidate and plant others, some are still small 1,2,3 years. Shrubs, which are too shaved on the inside and thickened on the periphery, with small increments of twigs and smaller fruits, so in the autumn I rejuvenate and cut them at the ground. They won’t start giving birth to me until the second year. And while pruning, I don’t see if the bushes are old or younger. If they bear the above characters, I will cut them. Fertility gradually increases, and when I see the thickening, shaving and shrinking of the fruit again, I cut them up again and so I keep repeating it. If you only have 2-3 shrubs, you can’t afford it. That would be 2 years without fruits.
The rule for these plants is that if you want to have a stable crop of nice big fruits, you must have many more shrubs and more varieties for better pollination. Then he can afford to exchange varieties for others, rejuvenate and so on, without losing the crop.
Although the shrubs give birth to me quite steadily, with small fluctuations, so 2020 was the weakest year that I have remembered since I grew them. But the following year, 2021, was one of the best years.
There are limited times when plant patents restrict propagation by seed.
*Annuals (or otherwise) which have been bred to come true from seed; unless of course you outcross them so that the progeny do not grow true to type.
*Repeatedly back crossing a normally clonally propagated plant to a patented parent to produce a functionally identical plant that isn’t technically a clone.
Additionally, in the case of gmo where special genes have been inserted the gene itself is often patented so whether or not the actual cultivar was patented is irrelevant since the patent would apply regardless of genetic variation as long as that patented gene was involved.
In the case of honey berries, there aren’t any selections bred to come true from seed and none contain any patented gmo genes so growing them from seed is fair game.
In my experience (cca the last 10 years or so) there’s no comparison between older cultivars, esp European/Russian ones, and the Boreals - which are greatly superior in taste (and size). It’s almost like it’s a different species. Also, as has been mentioned in the thread before, they flower later so there are actually pollinators around to make a difference.
Just came accross a sale of B. Blizzard and B. Beauty at a local nursery where they are making space for new stuff - during the last 2 covid years inventory just didn’t move much. So i’m planting more, this time in the field since there will be more of them. The boreal line is definitely worth growing for taste, not just for variety.
The first honeyberry flower of the season opened in my garden today. Interestingly, on that bush, most of the leaves haven’t opened yet. I haven’t seen a bumblebee anywhere yet either!
Must be an “early” blooming variety. The complaint with early blooming in the more moderate climates is that they bloom before bugs are flying around, so they won’t get pollinated to set fruit. Did you get any fruit last year? You may want to consider some of the “late” blooming varieties as well.
I’m going to write down all my bloom times this year, but in cold climates with a short growing season, it seems the “early” and “late” blooming varieties all bloom roughly around the same time so it doesn’t matter. The Maxine Thompson varieties (Japanese) were specifically developed for their late blooming traits for moderate climates (Corvallis, Oregon). The Univ. of S varieties out of Canada- beauty, blizzard, and beast- are supposed to be late blooming as well.
I’m not very familiar with the European varieties, but I’m sure you can find some varieties that are late blooming.
I believe this is Duet, but I don’t know. It is in its 5th season this year, and there is one beside it in its 4th season, also unknown. The second one starts to flower about two weeks later, and so far, both have been pretty good with fruit. We had a mild March last year though. I have newer bushes in the garden this year that are also about to flower. I’m hoping a stray bumblebee will wake up in a few weeks and find a feast in my garden.
I need recommendations for new honey berries. I have 4 plants and honestly I am not that impressed with any of them but I have figured out what I am looking for.
-Blue Bird is the biggest best growing plant I have at around 6 ft tall. Production is ok but but taste isn’t that great (comparable to eating an unripe plum).
-Berry Blue is small and anemic. It is only a few ft tall, it has never really grown well, show signs of chlorosis and is tormented by the summer heat. Production is low while it taste similar to Blue bird.
-Sugar Mountain Blue is my second best growing plant at about 4 ft tall. Production is good; However the taste is the worst and very bitter to me, it isn’t worth eating.
-Tundra is small about the size of Berry Blue and the least productive plant I have. On the flip side it is the best tasting berry I have. It’s taste is approaching a fresh blueberry for how good it is to eat.
For the entirety of their lives all of my plants have lived in the shade of an apple tree I recently cut down due to fungal rot. I live in Utah zone 6B at 4200 ft we get to 100+ degrees with a high UV index and I know these guys aren’t going to make it. I do have other locations in my yard that are partial shade to plant the new plants.
So what I am looking for are bushes that are heat and sun tolerant, have large upright growth (no spreading habit), taste as good or better than Tundra and larger berries would be a plus. Bloom time doesn’t really matter to me. If late bloomers would do better with the sun that is fine.
