The hedges in front of my house are currently made up of mostly Nandina plants that have large, beautiful cluster of small red berries – the problem is that Nandina is invasive in my area. Not only that, but the berries are not edible for humans (even if cooked), or for wildlife. If you are looking for trees and shrubs with red berries, consider different options. The only real positive is that the bees do seem to like the flowers.
So, I’m looking to replace the Nandina with something else, and I’ve mostly settled on elderberries, but they have dark blue/black berries and my front door is red, so I’d like to have at least 1 plant with red berries. So, I’ve started to compile a list of trees and shrubs with red berries, and prioritize the edible berries.
Coniferous Trees With Red Berries
The only conifer tree (think pine) with red berries that I’ve been able to find is the yew tree (Taxus Baccata), even though its berries are technically arils (an extra seed covering that is typically fuzzy or fleshy). It’s a beautiful and long-lived tree (some are 3,000 years old!), but there’s a lot of drawbacks to planting a yew tree on a homestead. Mainly, that all of it is poisonous to some degree. I guess it’s good if you just want a shade tree that won’t get eaten by deer, but you need to educate guests (especially children) about the poisonous leaves, bark, and berries.
Trees and Shrubs with Edible Red Berries
I’ve written about edible berries for a homestead before, but I certainly didn’t cover all the possible edible berries, just the common ones and some unique berries that I’ve been looking into for my homestead food forest. This post is more about aesthetics than practicality, hence the focus on trees and shrubs with edible RED berries.
Steven’s Cranberry Bush
First and foremost for me is the Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon is the most commonly grown species in North America), but it’s generally a low shrub, and the Nandina I’m trying to replace are about 7 feet tall. So, this is a no go for my front hedges, but I did buy a Steven’s Cranberry plant because I love to eat cranberries, and Steven’s is the commercial variety that is used for cranberry sauce and jelly (love me some canned cranberry jelly on my mashed potatoes!) Apparently, there are some vining varieties of cranberries that might be good for me, but I can’t find a place to buy them.
American Highbush Cranberry
And then, there is the Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) which is not related to the regular cranberry, and though the fruit is edible either raw or cooked, it is very tart and apparently has a foul odor when cooked. The bark is also used medicinally to treat cramps due to the presence of valerenic acid, and so it is sometimes called Crampbark. Highbush cranberry is significantly taller than Steven’s cranberry at up to 13ft tall, so this is one of my top choices to replace the Nandina – the only thing I don’t like about it is the potential for odor while trying to make a jam from it, and I also wonder if any fallen fruit will smell bad, especially in the summer.
Red Mulberry Tree
I’ve already ordered a red mulberry tree (Morus rubra) because it checks all my boxes for a hedge plant – it is native to my area, it produces a good tasting edible fruit, and it has red berries. In all honesty, the red mulberry tree, the American Persimmon, and the American Black Cherry might be my 3 favorite plants because they are all native to my area but also good fruit producers and good for the pollinators. So, I plant to plant red mulberry trees not only near the front of my house, but also deep into the forest so the animals can have another food source. With the 3 trees I mentioned and some chestnut trees deep in the forest, I think a significantly grater animal population will be sustained in my forest.
Red Currant Bush
Red Currants (pronounced currents, idk why) are typically of the species Ribes rubrum which is native to western Europe, but there is a related red currant native to North America called Ribes triste with the common names of northern red currant, swamp red currant, and/or wild red currant. Since both of these plants are in the genus Ribes, they are also closely related to black and white currants (duh), gooseberries, and the jostaberry, which is actually a cross of a black currant and gooseberry. I like to grow mostly native plants, so I’d definitely opt for Ribes triste.
Lingonberry Bush
Lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) are a very cold hardy berry bush that are native to the boreal forest (Taiga) and Arctic Tundra biomes across the very far north of the Northern Hemisphere. As such, there are typically not that many countries where lingonberries are commonly cultivated – it’s pretty much just the pacific northwest of the USA, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. Lingonberry jam is very tasty and they serve it in the IKEA food courts with Swedish meatballs.
Strawberry Tree
The strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo, is not the same as a garden strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) bush that is commonly grown in the US. Arbutus unedo is a totally different kind of berry, but it is red and kinda sorta looks like a strawberry, and kind of like the Chinese strawberry, Myrica rubra. There are other edible species in the Arbutus genus like Arbutus menziesii, which is native to the Southwest of North America, but the berries have high tannin levels so a more bitter if eaten raw.
Goji Berry
Goji berries have ben cultivated in Asia for hundreds of years, and it was brough to the UK in the 1730s by Archibald Campbell who was the 3rd Duke of Argyll. So, in the UK, goji plants are often called the Duke of Argyll’s tea tree. Goji berries are actually fairly closely related to tomatoes and potatoes as they are all in the Solanaceae family. You can buy goji plants and seeds online in the USA, but they’re not native, and also just not very commonly grown here. I have some goji berry seeds that I bought on a whim from Seedvilleusa.com, but I plan to just grow them indoors because I think the goji berry plant might become invasive.
Goumi Berry
The goumi berry is another red berry from Asia, but it has the additional benefit of being a nitrogen fixer like peas and beans. I haven’t eat either a goji berry or goumi berry so i can’t vouch for the taste of either. When I do, I’ll update this post.
Bonus: Yaupon Holly, Pomegranate Tree, Apple Tree, Cherry Tree, and Cherry Bush
If none of the aforementioned berry plants have satiated your appetite for the color red on your permaculture homestead, then there are a few other practical trees that you could consider. They don’t produce edible berries, but they either produce a red fruit, or can be used as a source of caffeine (Yaupon Holly). I particularly like the Yaupon Holly tree because it looks very similar to an American Holly and even produces red (inedible) berries, but the leave and twigs can be used to make a caffeinated tea.