1x LIVE Arbutus Unedo Strawberry plant tree tea     

You are buying 1 live tree bare rooted

SHIPPED By Airplane

Resistant to cold and drought

Enjoy a beautiful tree in your garden.

This plant can be grown as bonsai or as a garden tree.

The Strawberry tree is an evergreen broadleaf shrub or small tree with a spreading, picturesque habit, that is known for its orange-red spherical fruit (color of strawberries) borne on the limbs in the fall. The strawberry tree grows to be 15'-30' in both height and width. While it can be left on its own to form a very large shrub, it can also have its lower limbs removed in order to shape it into a small garden tree. The spreading limbs bear simple, alternate leaves, which are 2”-5” long with serrated edges. The upper surfaces of the leaves are a very glossy dark green color, while the undersides are paler. The limbs are clad in a gray-brown bark that peels and flakes to reveal a reddish bark beneath. With time the tree takes on a distinctive shape with gnarled trunks and branches.

Arbutus unedo, commonly called Strawberry Tree, Apple of Cain, or Cane Apple, is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the family Ericaceae, native to the Mediterranean region and western Europe north to western France and Ireland. Due to its presence in South West Ireland, it is also known as Irish strawberry tree, and Killarney strawberry tree.

How to eat them:

Sweet but insipid, the Latin name 'unedo' means 'I eat one (only)' and suggests that the fruit is so delicious that a person only needs to eat one. It does have a somewhat gritty skin, but the fruit itself has the texture of a lush tropical fruit and has a delicate pleasant flavour.

For those people with sensitive taste buds, this is a fruit that can be enjoyed when eaten in moderate quantities. The fruit contains about 20% sugars and can be used to make delicious and nourishing jams and preserves.

It is ripe in Autumn and is about 15mm in diameter. When fully ripe it falls from the tree and so it is advisable to grow the plant in short grass in order to cushion the fall of the fruit.

In some countries they are used to make jam and liqueurs (such as the Portuguese Medronho, a kind of strong brandy).

Culture and Growth Habits

Arbutus unedo is perennial, evergreen tree growing to 9 m (29ft) by 8 m (26ft) at a medium rate. It is hardy to Zones 04 - 10 and it is frost tender, but needs to be protected from strong cold winds when young. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Bees.

It prefers light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils, requires well-drained soil and can grow in heavy clay soil.The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It requires dry or moist soil.

The plant can tolerate maritime exposure. It can tolerate atmospheric pollution. The cape gooseberries is a usually reaching 2 to 3 ft. in height. Under good conditions it can reach 6 ft. but will need support. The purplish, spreading branches are ribbed and covered with fine hairs.

Flowering, Fruit and Harvest

The flowers appear by mid-October & deep into winter. Being self-fertile, it sets round fruit in winter, which very slowly ripen from green to yellow to pink to red & are bumply or warted. The fruits take a full year to ripen, so that this evergreen will have new flowers & ripening fruits simultaneously.

The fruits don't really look like strawberries because they're perfectly round, but the size & color is otherwise pretty close, hence the tree's name. The flesh is amber & has a texture similar to strawberries except mealy. These fruits are edible but insipid so rarely eaten raw, though birds like them, & frankly so do I. Though the fruits cling unripe for just about a full year, but when finally bright red, they'll drop off rather soon if not harvested.

After the flower falls, the calyx expands, forming a straw-colored husk much larger than the fruit enclosed, which take 70 to 80 days to mature. The fruit is a berry with smooth, waxy, orange-yellow skin and juicy pulp containing numerous very small yellowish seeds. As the fruits ripen, they begin to drop to the ground, but will continue to mature and change from green to the golden-yellow of the mature fruit.