Saskatoon Berry - Anyone Tried Them?

I like your Amelanchiers very much.

Since I wrote in 2014 I bought a pre-bonsai serviceberry, in 2015, from Meehans Miniatures. The species is Amelanchier canadensis and it flowered this year for the first time. I removed flowers after a little show so will not have berries. The leaves are a bit large and internodes a bit long. I am thickening the trunk and will have to manage the foliage.

In addition to flowers the leaves are a nice apple green with good autumn color. Bark is very nice. Seems easy to care for.

A keeper IMO, somewhat unusual. Still looking for a specimen I can collect.

I'm really glad to see this thread. I just started this obsession, I mean hobby last year and one of the first nursery trees I drug home was a amelanchier 'robin hill'. I didn't know if it was suitable but I liked the looks of it and it has pale pink flowers.

Somehow it managed to survive my newbie 'rip it out of the pot and cut off too many roots' and the winter so I'm leaving it alone this year. It needs cut back hard next year, hoping for some decent back budding this year so I can figure out what to do with it. Its getting ready to bloom soon, can't wait to see the flowers since I cut them all off last year.

GailC said:

I'm really glad to see this thread. I just started this obsession, I mean hobby last year and one of the first nursery trees I drug home was a amelanchier 'robin hill'. I didn't know if it was suitable but I liked the looks of it and it has pale pink flowers.

Somehow it managed to survive my newbie 'rip it out of the pot and cut off too many roots' and the winter so I'm leaving it alone this year. It needs cut back hard next year, hoping for some decent back budding this year so I can figure out what to do with it. Its getting ready to bloom soon, can't wait to see the flowers since I cut them all off last year.

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Cool little tree!...........................you were right the first time

Tycoss said:

Whole treeView attachment 142302
Twigging from the rightView attachment 142303
Main trunkView attachment 142301
Closeup with deadwood
View attachment 142304
Very different character than is typical with Saskatoon berry.

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Super-cool tree! Looks like you'll have some tough pruning choices. I think ungulates are nature's bonsai masters. I have a Gambel Oak just starting to wake up that looks like it was stomped, or eaten several times. I thought it was a goner until I saw the first bud opening today - still hoping all the trunks and branches survived winter!

my Study Group, Arbor Arts Collective, MKE chapter, decided as a group we'd all try Amelanchier, so autumn 2014 we picked up 10 of them, and each got one or two. First picture is a Arbor Arts meeting July 2015 where members brought 4 trees in, one on left is pretty much as received from the nursery, owner didn't get around to doing anything yet. Mine is the tall one, in an Anderson flat, I repotted & worked roots without chopping, thought was leaving lots will force the root system to colonize the flat quickly, with a better response to chop later. This may have proven to be faulty thinking. The two on the right were chopped right away, one repotted down, the other left in nursery can.


next is mine in the back yard, still not pruned, but blooming,


Autumn 2014 color


Below is one I chopped and worked roots all in one day, then put in Anderson flat. Extra twigs are not suckers, I removed all of those, but rather cuttings I tried to get to stick. They eventually failed, but I did nothing to provide extra protection for the cuttings. In theory, they could root from cuttings.



End result, chopping right away from the nursery can and working roots at same time seems to get the tree further down the road toward bonsai than separating the two acts by a growing season.

These are all the hybrid, bred to tend to have a single trunk, sold by landscape nurseries
Amelanchier x grandiflora 'Autumn Brilliance'

All in all, they are easy, totally winter hardy. I love the fact that I just leave the Anderson flats right where they are, fully exposed to winter sun, & wind, and they pull through my zone 5b winters without loosing a single twig.

They are distantly related to apples, except flowers are on previous years twigs, no fruit or flower spurs unlike apples which can flower from spurs. Haven't had trouble yet with cedar apple rust, and I do have shimpaku growing within a few feet of them. This is only my 3rd growing season, so I have not got a lot of experience yet. I'm sure leaves will reduce nicely once the branches have some ramification. All in all, a nice, very winter hardy species for flowering bonsai.

Oh, after a hard chop, they skip flowering. If you want flowers, you can't prune too late in the previous season. How late? I don't know yet, maybe middle of summer, maybe the deadline is late spring. I need to take notes and observe.

It is a sweet genus of trees, or shrubs for bonsai, leaves really do get quite small, and the flowers & fruit are small enough they are in scale for bonsai. The fruit comes in June, early enough that a tree in fruit might be able to make it to a late Satsuki show. The flowers are very early in spring, before or with flowering cherries, after Chojubai & Ume, but at the same time as Toyo Nishiki and other flowering quinces. The smooth gray bark on nursery stock is very beech like. All in all a great species for bonsai.

Note, they do not trunk up very quickly at all, and since they are rather small trees, I would estimate that a 4 inch diameter trunk (10 cm) is about the maximum you can expect to get in a reasonable amount of time (less than 15 years). I suppose you can get larger trunks, but it is a slow road. If you start with nursery stock, get the tallest, oldest you can reasonably afford. They will make good medium and small bonsai. Not that good for bonsai over 3 feet tall because trunks tend to be slender.

Would be a nice addition to a mixed forest planting.

An update on the tree I introduced earlier in this thread. Leaves and flowers are now emerging, three weeks post collection. Hopefully it continues to thrive. I love the contrast between the strange, rugged trunk, and the fresh beauty of the flowers. Reminds me of an old ume, to a lesser degree.

This is the only one flowering (first time since collection), a multi twisted stemmed, deer and Elk browsed clump.....with lots of suckers from below the soil line close to the base.....all that's needed now are bees.

Pic taken June 23, 2017
My Amelanchier in fruit. They are mild, sweet, and seeds are soft enough to chew easily, seeds add an almond note.

This cultivar ripe fruit are dark purple.

The shoots are all connected by a think root/trunk that's currently mostly buried. Future raft.

Cool. I like the trunk and movement on that thicker one on the end.

An update on my Saskatoon. Three months post collection and the leaves are out and hardened off. It would have had about 50-60 berries ( on an 18" by 24" plant) but I removed all the flowers so it didn't waste so much energy. Only other collected tree I have that recovered this fast was a honeysuckle. First pic from above, second closeup showing trunk and deadwood, third is the front from further back.

Tycoss said:

View attachment 150839 View attachment 150840 View attachment 150842 An update on my Saskatoon. Three months post collection and the leaves are out and hardened off. It would have had about 50-60 berries ( on an 18" by 24" plant) but I removed all the flowers so it didn't waste so much energy. Only other collected tree I have that recovered this fast was a honeysuckle. First pic from above, second closeup showing trunk and deadwood, third is the front from further back.

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That looks pretty sweet, really hard to find a collectible Saskatoon like that, well done! Good luck with it and keep us posted.

I just looked up the thread to put up some berry shots, they're in now. My house is surrounded by them, so good, free food. Lots of people don't like them, weirdos. They're pretty much my favourite berry of all. The Bears will be back now. For some reason there hardly is any Saskatoon juniper rust on them this year, (same kind of thing as CA rust) that's nice. Most years half the berries are infected and not edible. Probably because it's been hot and dry this year I guess.

BTW tycoss did you ask me about that Buffalo berry a while back? Thought I saw that then couldn't find it. It's mostly dead unfortunately, just one live twig still.

Good to see those berries. They are one of my favourites too. Apparently along with buffalo berries, they were the most important wild fruit to the natives out here.
Too bad about your buffalo berry bush. I collected one this April that seems to be doing well, new buds and feeder roots and all. I'd like to get good at collecting them, as some out here are kind of interesting looking. Just wanted to compare notes on them.

Tycoss said:

Good to see those berries. They are one of my favourites too. Apparently along with buffalo berries, they were the most important wild fruit to the natives out here.
Too bad about your buffalo berry bush. I collected one this April that seems to be doing well, new buds and feeder roots and all. I'd like to get good at collecting them, as some out here are kind of interesting looking. Just wanted to compare notes on them.

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I guess you're on your own with those for a bit. I like to give people a handful of Buffalo berries out in the bush. Tell them they're good and watch their face after they eat them! They are good, sort of, a little bit shocking.

Cool never seen this thread but

I have a large amelanchier lachmarkii
Wich is given to me by @leatherback he dug it out of the garden in februari this year

Tree had barely any roots but bounced back just fine



As you can see the nebari needs some work and i am thinking of a ground layer next spring.


^may 17^



^night shot yesterday^

Its growing just fine in a shaded position
Now just wait till the pretty fall collor and after the leaves are gone ill go try and figure out what direction to go with this

Ill try to make some pics today from different angles!

Alright you berry eaters.....

This is the type of shrub I collected seedlings from..

@wireme I was rooting around the bases looking for forest starts...and found my fattest trunk has a long surface root, so I may do a raftrest...
A forest leading with a raft!
Good to see yours!

So....

WTF are these?



Sorce

sorce said:

Alright you berry eaters.....

This is the type of shrub I collected seedlings from..

@wireme I was rooting around the bases looking for forest starts...and found my fattest trunk has a long surface root, so I may do a raftrest...
A forest leading with a raft!
Good to see yours!

So....

WTF are these?

View attachment 156476 View attachment 156477 View attachment 156478 View attachment 156476 View attachment 156477 View attachment 156478

Sorce

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Those are hedge cotoneaster. I forget the Latin name. Probably the most popular hedge around here. Above are some in my yard.

It seems the species may have bonsai potential. Here's my future mame: