Q: Are there any fruits that ripen after strawberries but before blueberries or brambles? I’d like to plan out a garden of more-or-less continuous harvests for berries, but I think even the earliest-ripening summer berries leave me with a few weeks of waiting.
A: Serviceberry would be a good solution if you have the space. These native trees have another common name of Juneberry for the period in which fruits typically ripen. Their fruits happen to be blueberry-like in size, though have their own unique, mild sweet-tart flavor. Its seeds are a little bit bigger than a blueberry’s but still edible, and the ripe fruits are a dark purple color.
Several species of serviceberry (all in the genus Amelanchier) grow wild in Maryland and the eastern U.S. While at least one of the species grown for prime fruit flavor and quality is not local, any species or hybrid you’re likely to grow in a home landscape should suffice for household use. You can eat the berries fresh, turn them into preserves, or cook with them as you would a blueberry. I’ve successfully added them to a scone recipe, as well as just eaten a handful raw.
Our new web page Less Common Fruits for a Home Garden provides basic growing tips and care information for this berry and other native and non-native fruits like kiwi berries, Asian persimmon, black chokeberry, elderberry, and currant.
Serviceberry is also a great garden addition for its aesthetics: spring blooms (showy and of service to pollinators), small leaves (they don’t cast heavy shade on companion plants below), and attractive fall foliage color (often reddish-orange). Mature plants can be single-trunked or multi-trunked trees, and the size of a very large shrub or a small tree reaching around 20 feet high or so.
Q: Something destroyed my Euonymus shrubs this spring … the leaves are gone. I saw a bunch of caterpillars wandering around the yard I’ve never seen before, but I’ve never seen pests on the shrubs before, so I’m not sure they’re responsible. Do you have a guess as to what happened?
A: I think the caterpillars, in this case, are probably the guilty party. You’re right – not much bothers Euonymus except for scale insects, and missing leaves are not their usual habit. We’ve received more Ask Extension questions than usual this year about a pest called, appropriately, Euonymus Leaf Notcher. Perhaps they are becoming more numerous now after first being detected in northern Virginia about 20 years ago.
The pest in question is a caterpillar of a non-native moth, and fortunately, it only eats the leaves of Euonymus (Euonymus) and its cousin Bittersweet (Celastrus). Most plants of either genus that grow in wild areas and home gardens in our region are non-native or even invasive. There is a native Bittersweet species and a couple native (deciduous) Euonymus shrub species in our woods, but they are rarer to find, in part because deer love to eat the latter.
Thankfully, this moth only has one generation per year, so once the spring feeding damage is done, you’re in the clear for the rest of the season.
To prevent the problem in future years, look for egg clusters that the adult moths lay in autumn on twig tips (or underneath host plant leaves), and squish them or prune them off. A caterpillar population which is noticed early, while they are still young and small, could be stopped by an application of a biologically-derived pesticide containing the ingredients Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring bacteria commonly found in soil) or spinosad. A topical spray, like horticultural oil or insecticidal soap, would also work, but to be effective, you must directly contact the caterpillars.
If a row of naked Euonymus is too much of an eyesore, you can cut the whole mess back quite a bit to let it leaf out again and refresh its appearance. You’re still looking at a few weeks of regrowth to rain some fullness or size either way, but at least then you can manage their size at the same time, since ‘Manhattan’ will get around 10 feet high and wide if you let it, and it grows fast.
University of Maryland Extension’s Home and Garden Information Center offers free gardening and pest information atextension.umd.edu/hgic. Click “Ask Extension” to send questions and photos.
