Amelanchier canadensis 

'Juneberry'

Rosaceae: a deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 0.5–8 m tall with one to many stems and a narrow, fastigiate crown. The white flowers are produced in early spring in loose racemes 4–6 cm long at the ends of the branches.  The fruit is a pome, 7–10mm diameter, dark purple when ripe; it is edible and sweet. Fruits become ripe in June and July. The leaves are alternate, simple, ovate to ovate-oblong, 1–5.5cm long by 1.8–2.8 cm wide. Native to eastern North America in Canada from Newfoundland west to southern Ontario, and in the United States from Maine south to Alabama. Naturalized in Britain.

USES:

The fruit can be eaten raw or cooked. The fruit contains a few small seeds at the centre, it has a sweet flavour with a hint of apple, and can be eaten out of hand, used in pies, preserves, or dried and used like raisins. The fruit are sweet, juicy and delicious. When the fruit is thoroughly cooked in puddings or pies the seed imparts an almond flavour to the food. The fruit is rich in iron and copper.

A tea made from the root bark (mixed with other unspecified herbs) was used as a tonic in the treatment of excessive menstrual bleeding and also to treat diarrhoea. A bath of the bark tea was used on children with worms. An infusion of the root was used to prevent miscarriage after an injury. A compound concoction of the inner bark was used as a disinfectant wash.

GROWING INFORMATION:

Seeds of Amelanchier species have a deep dormancy within them, this requires a degree of patience to overcome and it is usually quite easy to get high levels of germination if the correct procedures are followed.

To begin with soak the seeds for 24 hours in water at room temperature.

Prepare a free draining substrate into which the seeds are to be mixed, this can be a 50/50 mixture of compost and sharp sand, or perlite, vermiculite. The chosen substrate needs to be moist (but not wet), if you can squeeze water out of it with your hand it is too wet and your seeds may drown and die. Mix the seeds into the substrate, making sure that there is enough volume of material to keep the seeds separated.

Place the seed mixture into a clear plastic bag (freezer bags, especially zip-lock bags are very useful for this -provided a little gap is left in the seal for air exchange) If it is not a zip-lock type bag it needs to be loosely tied. Then write the date on the bag so that you know when the pre-treatment was started.

The seeds first require a period of warm pre-treatment and need to be kept in temperatures of 20°C for a period of around 4 weeks. During this time make sure that the pre-treatment medium does not dry out at any stage or it will be ineffective!

Next the seeds require a long cold period to break the final part of the dormancy, this is achieved by placing the bag in the fridge at (4°C) for 16 weeks. It is quite possible for the seeds to germinate in the bag at these temperatures when they are ready to do so, if they do, just remove them from the bag and carefully plant them up.

When the period of pre-treatment has finished the seed should be ready to be planted. Small quantities can be sown in pots or seed trays filled with a good quality compost and cover them with a thin layer of compost no more than 1cm deep. For larger quantities it is easiest to sow the seeds in a well prepared seedbed outdoors once the warm and cold pre-treatments have finished and wait for the seedlings to appear.

It has also been found that fluctuating pre-treatment temperatures can give the best germination results and I have myself had excellent results by keeping the mixed seeds in a cold shed through the winter for the cold stage of their pre-treatment and allowing the temperature to fluctuate naturally. Ungerminated seeds can have the whole warm and cold process repeated again to enable more seeds to germinate. Fresh seedlings can keep germinating for several years after the original sowing date.

Do not expose newly sown seeds to high temperatures (above 25°C). Keep the seedlings well-watered and weed free. Growth in the first year is usually between 10 and 30cm depending on the time of germination and cultural techniques and developing seedlings are usually trouble free. Allow them to grow for 2 or 3 years before planting them in a permanent position.

HARVESTED: 2017

APPROX. 20+ SEEDS