Shrubs that offer berried treasure all year round
Cinead McTernan looks beyond the blueberry and finds a trove of unusual fruiting shrubs to suit every garden
Ibought a myrtle (Myrtus communis) from the Hampshire-based nursery, Hortus Loci, when I was researching my book, Grow Your Own Botanicals. Now is an excellent time to order bare root trees online as you have a far bigger choice than container-grown plants and they’ll grow away faster.
As I’m in Bristol, I was pleased that I could place my order on the website, despite the fact that it turns out I’m hopeless at buying things online: whether it’s a shrub or tin of coconut milk, more often than I’d care to admit, I end up with the wrong size of whatever it is I’ve ordered.
Initially alarmed by the large, standard-trained myrtle that was delivered (it should have been a small bush), it has become the jewel in the crown of my small town garden.
An enormous ball-shaped bay (Laurus nobilis), which I ordered at the same time and should have been a small standard, also turned out to look much better than I imagined, and makes a surprisingly beautiful screen, behind which our outdoor sofa is hidden. (My grocery shopping errors don’t turn out so well, however, and tiny versions of coconut milk are always annoying.)
Not only is my myrtle a beautiful specimen, with a delicate, open framework that reminds me of a young olive tree, I was amazed to discover that it produces an abundant crop of edible berries during the winter. Myrtle is commonly grown as an evergreen hedge (it’s a good alternative to box, Buxus sempervirens, if blight is an issue), and as such, its fragrant, starshaped flowers are often sacrificed to achieve a nice, tidy silhouette. I think this must explain why it isn’t well known for its dark purple fruit.
This is a pity, because they’re delicious freshly plucked from the tree, are packed with nutrients (they contain four times the pigment of blueberries) and can be used in all manner of ways in the kitchen – I’ve dehydrated mine to make an alternative to peppercorns, but they make fine jams and jellies, too.
While berries have always featured in my edible plot, I’ve tended to stick to the familiar triumvirate – blueberries, raspberries and strawberries – but, inspired by my crop of myrtle berries, I was intrigued to find out what else was on offer, besides these old faithfuls. It turns out there is an exciting collection of lesser-known berrying shrubs to discover, and, best of all, some of them produce fruit in the autumn and winter, too. How wonderful… fresh berries nearly all year round!
I dehydrated my myrtle berries for an alternative to peppercorns