Add Small Fruting Plants to Your Garden

If your landscape isn't suitable for standard-sized fruit trees, you might want to consider fruit bushes. Here are some idea starters:

Thornless Blackberry plants could be a very good choice! In addition to being thornless, they do not need a trellis, and I find that they have a particularly sweet flavor. I like two varieties, Arapaho Thornless and Triple Crown Thornless. Both produce sucker plants that help them co-mingle quickly and produce an appealing blackberry hedgerow that can be very attractive in various different landscape designs. By the way, Arapaho is the earliest thornless blackberry of any variety. Both are hardy in zones 3 - 8.

There are a number of very good varieties of strawberry plants available. If you have questions about which varieties might be best in your area, you can drop me an e-mail at steve@landsteward.org One variety that I frequently recommend is the Ozark Beauty because of its exceptional hardiness and because it's one of the heaviest producing plants I've ever tested.

If you'd like to find a strawberry that's also an effective and attractive ground cover for your landscape, take a look at Sweet Charlie. It produces runners freely, making for good ground cover, and it produces large, juicy fruits with a tart, distinct flavor.

Here's a pleasant mental image for you: It's a Saturday morning, and the weekend is stretching lazily in front of you. How about a plate of home made pancakes? Step outside in you pajamas and pick a handful of your own fresh blueberries and you're all set. I love the distinctive taste of blueberries, and the plants are an attractive element in your landscape, too. Bear in mind that you will need to plant at least two different varieties for proper cross-fertilization.

Some of the rabbiteye varieties of blueberry bushes I often recommend are Austin, Brightwell and Powder Blue. These have an excellent flavor and produces nicely colored firm fruit.

Well, there you have it. Just a few ideas that should get you thinking about landscape that tastes as good as it looks! I invite you to tell me about any topics you'd like me to address in future columns.