Tasty, tropical guava is easy to grow in the ground and containers. Gardening expert Melissa Strauss shares how to care for this farmer's market favorite's, delicious ‘Thai White’ variety. A long-lived tropical tree that produces delicious, nutritious fruits, guava is easy to grow and care for. Plant this guava right in the garden in warm climates, and in cooler climates, opt for a large container. Let’s look at the ‘Thai White’ variety that produces delicious fruits that are extra high in fiber and immune-boosting vitamin C. What Is It? ‘Thai White’ guava is a lightly sweet and refreshing fruit. Typically, it’s consumed raw and unripe, sometimes dipped in chili, salt, sugar, or a combination of all three. It’s a tough small tree that makes an attractive addition to the landscape, though it won’t grow in the ground outside of zones 9-11. Outside this climate, it makes a nice container or patio plant. Guavas were in cultivation as many as 5,000 years ago in Peru. Spanish and Portuguese explorers imported the species to Florida and Europe. Eventually, they traveled across the continent with their delicious discovery, distributing it to Asia and India. Legend follows that the fruits of the guava tree were once inedible. A young boy, wanting to feed a hungry beggar, prayed for the gods to make the fruit edible. The gods obliged the boy, impressed with his kindness and compassion, giving the fruit a sweet, tangy, tart flavor we now love. Characteristics ‘Thai White’ is a mid-sized, evergreen fruit tree that will grow to about 15′-20′ left to its own devices. You can prune it to keep it to a more manageable size, making it easier to harvest the round, green fruits. The fruit is green with white flesh and has higher sugar, vitamin C, and fiber content than a pink guava. It also tends to have more seeds, lending to its more fibrous texture. The entire fruit, including the peel, is edible. According to the National Library of Medicine, the fruit, eaten with the peel is, very healthy. It can lower blood glucose levels and triglycerides, making it a great addition to a healthy diet. The plant is attractive and fits well into a tropical landscape. It usually has one or two central trunks and a many-branched, umbrella-like canopy. The leaves are broad, medium green, and have prominent veining. Native Area Guavas are native to Central and South America and the Caribbean. Portuguese travelers brought the white guava to Asia in the 17th century, where it became a popular fruit to grow and eat. The Thai people refer to the fruit as farang, which denotes a foreign person of white race. Planting Spring and early summer are the best times to plant your ‘Thai White’ guava. The plant is in an active growth phase at this time and will establish quickly. If you want to grow it in a container, it’s fine to re-pot it any time of year. It will need to come indoors when the temperature drops below freezing. This tree is invasive in certain areas of North America. In these areas, grow in a container. Loose soil will help this tree to develop strong roots. Dig a hole three times as deep and wide as the root ball to loosen the soil. This may seem like a lot, but it is ideal for root development. Backfill the hole to the depth of the root ball and position it so that the root ball is level with the surrounding earth. You won’t usually need to amend the soil, so simply backfill, tamp down the soil, and water deeply. The roots of the guava can be extensive, growing beyond the drop line. For this reason, plant it a fair distance away from your home, structures, or concrete slabs.

Known as the edible honeysuckle, honeyberry shrubs are cold-hardy and easy to grow and maintain. They flower in winter when most other plants are dormant, and the creamy, tubular flowers have a lovely honeysuckle fragrance. They taste similar to blueberries, but with raspberry and blackberry undertones. This unique fruit is a member of the honeysuckle family and is easy to grow with few pests and diseases. The fruit appears in spring and is very high in antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients. Honeyberry is a good ornamental plant and an edible for the food garden. With very little care but for annual feeding and pruning after a few years, they will perform well for many years to come. Read on for more about this great perennial. What Is It? Lonicera caerulea is a member of the honeysuckle family and has various common names, including haskap (from Japan), zhimolost (from Russia), blue honeysuckle, and honeyberry. The Russian and Japanese varieties have some subtle differences. Honeyberry is a tough, deciduous shrub that is winter-hardy and produces a fruit crop in early spring. Native Area Honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea) has origins in the temperate regions of most of Europe, Asia, and parts of the US, including an area from California to Wyoming and north into Canada. Several hybrids have been bred, many Russian and some from Canada. Characteristics Honeyberry shrubs grow 4-6 feet tall and have a girth of about the same size, but they can be pruned to keep them more compact. There are also compact varieties to choose from. The flowers are a creamy yellow color, and a tubular shape, and appear in late spring and early summer. They also have the wonderful honeysuckle fragrance that permeates the air, especially at night. The fruits are used for jams, jellies, juices, and wine. They are great for eating fresh and melt in your mouth with their rich, unique berry flavor. They also make a unique sweet sauce for ice cream and cakes. To preserve them, they can be frozen but will burst through their skins when they defrost – good for winemakers, not so good for eating fresh. Honeyberries are also pickled and dried. One reason honeyberries are grown is their health benefits. They are rich in antioxidants, vitamin C, and vitamin B, as well as iron, calcium, phosphorous, and especially magnesium. These shrubs are not self-pollinating and require another variety to help pollinate the flowers. Before planting, ensure you have enough space for at least two shrubs. These extremely hardy shrubs can fruit for up to 30 years or more once you have them planted and look after them with some annual care. Planting Ensure plenty of space between bushes, at least five feet, to account for their mature size. Choose a position with full sun or partial shade. They will grow to around six feet high when mature, but there are also compact varieties that are perfect for container growing and smaller gardens. The best time to plant honeyberry bushes is spring, so they have time to acclimate to their soil and surroundings before the following season. Soak plants in water 30 minutes before planting to help release their roots from the nursery container. Dig a hole at least twice the width of the rootball. This will allow the roots to spread and secure the plant in the soil. Add plenty of compost to the soil and mix well before using it to plant the shrub in the hole and backfilling. Press down to release air pockets, make a basin around the plant, and water well. Add a layer of organic mulch around the plant, making sure to keep the mulch off the plant’s stems.

Looking to add some berry bushes to your edible garden? ‘Fall Gold’ raspberry bushes have small, golden fruits that are sweet and just a little bit tart. You could plant one shrub, start an entire berry patch, or even use these perennials as a fruit-filled privacy fence. Plant biologist Emily Estep has rounded up all the information you need to keep these shrubs healthy, happy, and covered in berries. There’s just something special about raspberries. They’re sweet and tart at the same time, and they’re healthy, too, packed with antioxidants and fiber. The only problem is that they’re small and expensive, lasting only a few days in the fridge. Thankfully, it’s easy to grow your own. ‘Fall Gold’ raspberry bushes are just like regular raspberries, except the fruits are a beautiful shade of golden yellow. Their sweet flavor is somewhat reminiscent of honey, or perhaps that’s just the placebo effect of their color. Either way, they add unexpected color and flavor to the garden. This everbearing cultivar fruits twice per year, leading to multiple harvests. With a little bit of strategic pruning, these perennial shrubs will provide delicious fruit for years, spreading into berry patches with suckers. These perennials thrive in much of the United States. If you’ve seen wild raspberries on nearby hikes, chances are this cultivar will flourish in your backyard. Here’s everything you need to know about how to plant, grow, and care for ‘Fall Gold’ raspberry bushes. What Is It? ‘Fall Gold’ raspberry bushes standout among other cultivars of the popular fruit-bearing bramble bush for two reasons. One, their “berries” ripen to a dark yellow or gold instead of red. Two, these shrubs are everbearing, which means that each cane will produce two crops, one in fall followed by a second in the upcoming early summer. While many raspberry varieties only offer fruit once, usually in late summer or early fall, ‘Fall Gold’ gives you the chance to harvest at multiple times during the year. The fall fruits will emerge from the top third of the canes, and then in the following year around June, more fruits will emerge from the bottom two thirds of the canes. It’s crucial that you do not remove these canes entirely after their fall fruiting. They will produce more fruit in the next growing season on the bottom of the canes. Characteristics ‘Fall Gold’ raspberry bushes are perennial shrubs, though the thorny canes are biennial, surviving for two years before dying off. This cultivar is known for its delicious fruits, which are not actually berries. Botanically speaking, they are aggregate fruits made of many small drupes. In addition to fruit, this Rubus species has a lot to offer to local wildlife. The flowers attract all sorts of pollinators, including bees and butterflies, while the fruit and habitat benefit both small mammals and birds. These medium-sized shrubs also make a great barrier or privacy fence. This cultivar is self-fruiting, meaning you do not need a second plant to assist the first in pollination. That said, you will probably want to plant multiple shrubs to maximize your harvests. Native Area R. idaeus raspberries fall into two categories: those that are native to Eurasia and those that are native to North America. Over time, growers have cultivated and hybridized various subspecies of raspberries to make many types of berries, including ‘Fall Gold,’ making its “native area” blurry at best. Broadly, raspberries are native to mild, temperate areas with four distinct seasons, moderate rainfall, and average humidity levels. This makes ‘Fall Gold’ among other subspecies and cultivars perennial in USDA hardiness zones 5 through 8. They can survive winters that dip down to temperatures around -20°F (-29°C). They can survive hot summers, too, but temperatures consistently above 95°F (35°C) will seriously stunt growth. The summer weather in zone 9 and in even hotter regions is usually too much for raspberries. Planting ‘Fall Gold’ shrubs will perform best directly in the ground since they get fairly large. If you want a lot of fruit, you’ll need to plant a lot of shrubs. One mature shrub may produce a few pounds of fruit, but the “berries” are very small. If you want a lot of them, you’ll need to plant at least a few individuals. You can also try growing a few plants in a large container, or you can try starting a young shrub in a container and ultimately transplanting it into the ground. In areas with particularly heavy clay soil, you can also grow these raspberries in raised beds. Just consider that they mature to about 2 feet in width and 5 feet in height when planning. The best time to transplant is in late winter or in early spring, once the soil is workable and when the plant is just coming out of dormancy and starting to grow. Note that you may not get a June crop the first year, but a successful transplant should fruit in fall.