A strawberry tree.
GARDENINGAS WE walked through Appley Woods near Ryde picking wild strawberries — the very best kind — my dear old mother warned me about the 'strawberries’ that grow on trees.
"Don’t eat them, they’re poisonous, you know," she told me.
That vestigial memory, planted in me as an impressionable six year old, lived on, hardly questioned, even to the point that when I passed by a magnificent strawberry tree in the garden of a house on the corner of Melville and Trinity streets in Ryde I did nothing else other than slide on the juicy carpet of over-ripe fruits shed in the autumn.
It was only years later, when I was planting our garden at the Water Tower, I chose to learn a little more of arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree.
And, only now, have I tasted the fruit of my labours for the very first time, my enthusiasm fired by the joint venture between Ventnor Botanic Garden and the Royal Garden Cafe there.
They have collaborated to produce preserves, largely from the fruit produced there. It is a taste of things to come, I think, and a superb idea, to provide linkage between what is grown there and the produce that can be created from it.
And arbutus, as my first taste of the fruit confirmed, is probably better in a jar than fresh from the tree.
It is bland and squishy, slightly tart and packed full of seeds. But in the garden it looks very good indeed and in the Royal jar it really looks the business, as those who go to the Christmas fair there will, I am certain, readily agree.
But back to the tree. There are few evergreens of compact habit that deliver colour at this time of year in the way arbutus unedo does.
It has dark green, serrated, leathery foliage and, by late autumn, the creamy white pitcher-shaped flowers hang in clusters, accompanied by small, red, slightly strawberry-like spherical fruits, formed from the previous year’s flowers.
This autumn next year’s fruit set early while this year’s was still green, before changing to yellow to orange and to red as it ripened.
The species name unedo is said to come from Pliny the Elder, the Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher and means 'I only eat one’. I concur.
A. unedo grows widely in Greece in the olive groves with a more tender and spring-flowering compatriot called the Grecian strawberry tree (A. andrachne). This is a better looker with a trunk and stems the colour and texture of cinnamon sticks.
Sadly, it is too tender for most British gardens but can survive in very sheltered positions once mature. A hardier hybrid is arbutus x andrachnoides, sometimes called the red-barked strawberry tree.
But, back to unedo. Rubra is a pink-flowered form and Atlantic is a free-flowering compact, which fruits early. There is elfin king and, as the name suggests, it is of bushy, diminutive habit.
There is a justified re-birth in the popularity of the strawberry tree, which was much more widely grown in Victorian days when gardeners clamoured for the unusual. In Greece, where the 19th century plant hunters pounced, they often discovered them in coastal locations and they are good for that in this country where they have a liking for well-drained soil.
They are ericaceous but, unlike most other members of this family, they do not require acid soil — far from it, they will grow in neutral conditions and are lime-tolerant and like chalk.
Mine was but a stick when it went in. From memory, it was one of those sickly Woolworth plants in a box purchased cheap after it had languished — dry — in the store for much too long.
Strawberry trees are best planted young because they do not like disturbance, although they do like warmth and full sun, which could be one reason for my tree’s slow ascent.
Plant in spring where possible and protect with a covering in its first winter. As it matures, it will become hardier. The best way to get a plant is to visit a garden centre or take semi-ripe cuttings in late summer, which will root in a heated propagator in a 50/50 compost and grit mix. But don’t expect quick results — strawberry trees are slow growers but, given time, A. unedo will reach many metres in height.
Prune judiciously as your tree develops because it will affect fruiting. Early summer is the time to cut back any long stems.
• I have not tried them but I am told there are a number of alcoholic drinks made from the fruit, such as Portuguese modrono or brandymel. The Japanese also soak the fruit in sake to add flavour — maybe one for a future, cheerful collaboration between the botanic garden and the cafe.