- Joined
- May 27, 2012
- Messages
- 5,192
- Location
- Bellmere, QLD
- Website
- www.selfsufficientme.com
- Climate
- Sub-Tropical
Cherries need a cold climate or a chill factor to grow and fruit successfully - I've set out to find some good cherry alternatives for my subtropical climate or any warmer zone generally. Here is what I have found so far but feel free to add some more plants or comments to this thread.
Barbados cherry or Acerola is a large shrub-like plant which has similar looking fruit to a true cherry.
The outer red skin is similar and the flesh is soft but white and inside are 4 small seeds which are easy to separate from the pulp and spit out. However, the taste is rather different to a true cherry and it's more apple with sour undertones. I (and my family) really like them but we have had others try the fruit and be indifferent about the taste or even screw their nose up and claim they do not like the sourness - pussies. You can read my blog post about the Barbados Cherry here.
The other shrub/tree I'd like to mention is the Cedar Bay Cherry (Eugenia reinwardtiana) a rainforest plant native to Queensland Australia. Its fruit is also similar to a true cherry (although not quite as large) but it actually has the one seed. In my opinion, I found the fruit to be surprisingly similar overall to a cold climate cherry and I wasn't expecting this to be the case because I would have thought such a good tasting fruit would be more popular.
Anyway, the flesh of the Cedar Bay Cherry is a similar texture to a true cherry and the taste is sweet also (perhaps not quite as sweet) but certainly not tangy.
Unfortunately, the Cedar Bay Cherry tree is a very slow growing plant and it seems to go nowhere in some years. Also, I made the mistake of growing it in an open part of my garden where it seemed to suffer from too much sun exposure so I carefully moved it to a more sheltered location in part shade about 12 months ago and it's doing much better now.
I don't have any photos of the fruit (forgot to get some) and I doubt it will flower this season as it still reestablishes itself in its new location but I'll add some images to this thread as soon as I can. I'm not sure how productive the Cedar Bay Cherry can be when the tree is fully mature, however, I do think this plant is a great alternative to a real cherry for those who live in warmer climates.
Barbados cherry or Acerola is a large shrub-like plant which has similar looking fruit to a true cherry.
The outer red skin is similar and the flesh is soft but white and inside are 4 small seeds which are easy to separate from the pulp and spit out. However, the taste is rather different to a true cherry and it's more apple with sour undertones. I (and my family) really like them but we have had others try the fruit and be indifferent about the taste or even screw their nose up and claim they do not like the sourness - pussies. You can read my blog post about the Barbados Cherry here.
The other shrub/tree I'd like to mention is the Cedar Bay Cherry (Eugenia reinwardtiana) a rainforest plant native to Queensland Australia. Its fruit is also similar to a true cherry (although not quite as large) but it actually has the one seed. In my opinion, I found the fruit to be surprisingly similar overall to a cold climate cherry and I wasn't expecting this to be the case because I would have thought such a good tasting fruit would be more popular.
Anyway, the flesh of the Cedar Bay Cherry is a similar texture to a true cherry and the taste is sweet also (perhaps not quite as sweet) but certainly not tangy.
Unfortunately, the Cedar Bay Cherry tree is a very slow growing plant and it seems to go nowhere in some years. Also, I made the mistake of growing it in an open part of my garden where it seemed to suffer from too much sun exposure so I carefully moved it to a more sheltered location in part shade about 12 months ago and it's doing much better now.
I don't have any photos of the fruit (forgot to get some) and I doubt it will flower this season as it still reestablishes itself in its new location but I'll add some images to this thread as soon as I can. I'm not sure how productive the Cedar Bay Cherry can be when the tree is fully mature, however, I do think this plant is a great alternative to a real cherry for those who live in warmer climates.