Unproductive honeyberries

A few years ago, I bought two honeyberry trees from an online seller. It may have been Gurney's, but I'm no longer sure. The two plants were of different varieties, sold as a pollinating set and are supposed to produce edible oval-shaped berries.

The two plants have grown slowly but get a little larger every year. They have many small, dull yellow flowers on them. But I have yet to get a single berry from them.

I'm on the verge of ripping them out and replacing them with something that will be a better use of the space.

Has anyone else had more success with these?

(I believe there is more than one variety of plant with the common name of honeyberry, so not all honeyberries are the same.)

Hi Cathy,
I'm sorry to hear you've had problems with your honeyberries. Assuming they are, as you were told, two different varieties I'm not sure what else to suggest. Do you see the insects at the flowers when they bloom? Mine are adored by the bees for weeks and from my first year I have had a pretty good fruit set, despite being in a pretty exposed and windy area. It's difficult to tell when the fruit are properly ripe for picking though.
Is it possible that your climate doesn't suit them? I know they take cold winters quite happily, but does a hotter summer affect fruit set? Hopefully someone will have more experience to chip in.
My only other suggestion would be to try and get a third variety in case the nursery made a mistake. I find they take very easily from cuttings overwinter, and also grow from fresh seed, so you may be able to find someone to send you another. I'd offer one of mine, but being based in the UK that probably isn't wise...

I have four bushes and I find that the birds will eat every last berry if I don't cover each bush with a piece of garden row cover after they flower. Mine are pretty slow growing too, only a few inches a year.

I'm finding that my Honeyberries aren't very happy either. I've tried twice in two spots, but I'm thinking both spots are hotter and dryer in the summer than they like. In both locations I've lost one variety, so I no longer have cross pollinating happening.

I understand your feelings Cathy - if they're not happy,  I might as well grow something in that spot that might be happier. I haven't ripped minr out because I haven't got an alternative plant for the spot. Goumis don't seem to be invasive here, so I may try to get more of them. They also prefer to cross pollinate and I've only got one bush. I'm hoping I'll get berries this year, so I can at least taste them, but I knew it would take time to get established and had mostly planted it to feed the rhubarb near it.

I also might decide to try transplanting them elsewhere - if they're not happy where they are, if they die because I moved them, it's no real loss.

I doubt that birds are the issue, because I don't see berries even start to form.

Vermont is a cool climate on average, though we have some hot summer days.

I have not seen the honeyberry flowers pollinated, but I have a healthy population of pollinating insects, especially bumblebees.  What is the preferred pollinator of honeyberry?

The plants do behave like they are setting flowers but never actually getting pollinated. So I suppose it's possible that my two plants were accidentally the same variety. One was somewhat smaller than the other one at first, but has largely caught up.

Some years they may not have flowered simultaneously, but this year they definitely did. I tried to hand-pollinate one flower last year, but the flowers are do fragile it just crumbled at the touch.

I'm not interested in investing more $ in buying another honeyberry. Thank you for the offer of a starter transplant. Too bad no one local is growing these as far as I know.

If I get berries forming soon I'll keep them, otherwise I will take them out of the fenced garden and transplant them out by the woods. They would be replaced with cold-hardy blackberries.

Here is a lady in Vermont growing loads of honeyberries - enough that she makes things with them.  Maybe this article will reveal something useful.  She said bumblebees are the pollinators.

Practical Self-Reliance all about honeyberry (haksap)

And it sounds like she has some rough soil:

Our soil is shallow, clay-filled and wet, and winters are long up here in Vermont (zone 4).

Yet they do well for her. Maybe she can offer some advice?  They are a lovely berry, so useful and cold tolerant.

Well, this is interesting. One of my honeyberries seems to be forming berries of the correct shape, though they are still green.

Maybe I will get honeyberries for the first time this year.

I wonder if the problem is the two honeyberry varieties not flowering at quut the same time most years?

Cathy James wrote:Well, this is interesting. One of my honeyberries seems to be forming berries of the correct shape, though they are still green.

Maybe I will get honeyberries for the first time this year.

I wonder if the problem is the two honeyberry varieties not flowering at quite the same time most years?

Oh, duh! That could be your problem, especially now that I realize you are saying the berries don't form properly.  That is often from only partial pollination, incomplete pollination.  Great observing, Cathy!  So possibly you could solve this issue by getting another variety that is complementary in it's supposed flowing period to the others. Something in the middle, maybe?

Good luck! I know how frustrating it is to grow something and not have it produce.  My main causes of that in Oregon were not enough sun exposure for said plant.  I have seen examples of incomplete pollination though, usually on my squashes when I don't have enough plants in and blooming at once.

Mine do great, but I rarely get to eat any.  The birds always get mine.  Mine aren't very big, one stays about 5 feet, the other only about 3 feet, but the produce lots of great tasting berries.

As you mentioned, you made need another variety that blooms at a different time.  There are quite a few varieties, not sure how far apart the bloom times are, but if yours have a very small overlap of only a day or two, that may cause the issue.

Cathy James wrote:I wonder if the problem is the two honeyberry varieties not flowering at quite the same time most years?

I have two honeyberry plants as well, and I have the same hunch. Most years, the female flowers are done by the time the male plant has his... but this year they were synchronous and I seem to be getting fruit from the first time in several years... (I'm in Montreal so our springs are probably not all that different). It also took several years before I got a good amount of flowers on both.

That said, my plants are not in a fantastic spot - it turned out too shaded for good production. So I'm mostly keeping them because they make a decent shrub to fill out an awkward spot and it's better than nothing, but I've stopped expecting much.

My honeyberry has finally produced fruit! The plant is about knee high, and produces fairly large, dark blue berries.

They taste somewhat tart and would probably be better in jam than fresh, but I won't have enough berries from a single plant (plus its pollinator, which produces very little fruit) to do that.

I don't plan to get more honeyberry, but I will keep what I have. Hopefully the plan is will grow each year and produce more berries as they get larger.

I bought two about 3 years ago - the Kamtchatica bore two berries the first year and they were quite sweet, but the Morena didn't have any at all, nor the following year - last year neither had any. This year, I moved them next to each other, though they were only a few pots away from each other, but nothing happened (I haven't even seen any flowers on them to pollinate them by hand myself! This year, I have bought a brand-new blackcurrant bush and put its pot in between them, but I'm not hopeful!

I live in Wales (Swansea) so it's possible our winters don't seem to suit them, though they both look very healthy!
Carrie 69

This is the third summer for my honey berries. I bought them because they had berries when they were in the pot at Home Depot. I live in Anchorage Alaska, which is mild winters and mild summers for this northern latitude. One is Tundra and the other is Aurora. Neither one even blossoms they are beautiful healthy plants 2 feet tall surrounded by blueberries, backed by apple trees and neither one blossoms my blueberries produce my apples produce but my honey berries just take up space

Dario, welcome to the forum.

Do your honeyberry plants get enough sun?  

Do you water with compost tea?

Dario Notti wrote:This is the third summer for my honey berries. I bought them because they had berries when they were in the pot at Home Depot. I live in Anchorage Alaska, which is mild winters and mild summers for this northern latitude. One is Tundra and the other is Aurora. Neither one even blossoms they are beautiful healthy plants 2 feet tall surrounded by blueberries, backed by apple trees and neither one blossoms my blueberries produce my apples produce but my honey berries just take up space

I feel your pain!

I've had my honey berry for seven years and it's never blossomed that I've noticed. I don't expect fruit because I accidentally mowed down my other variety for pollination. But I'd like to at least see some blossoms on it too know if it is worth tracking down another variety for pollination.

Honeyberry flower *really* early compared to most other plants - like February where I live. So I'd just suggest that next year you start checking the plants really early. The flowers on the plants I had - which also never did well and the two original eventually died - the flowers were *very* inconspicuous unless I looked carefully.

I'm getting the impression that these plants *don't* like heat. Unfortunately, I planted mine where when we get sunny weather in July, they would get pretty hot and I'm thinking (but can't prove) that they might prefer more summer shade than mine were getting - or at least afternoon shade as the west sun is the hottest on my land.

My honey berries are the first shrub to blossom sometimes even earlier than my crocuses. I have noticed after a heavy pruning the harvest is larger. They propogate easily from cuttings slow to grow at first but really come on strong year two.

Ironically, it just needed more patience. This year, for the first time, I got a pretty decent honeyberry crop, considering that I only have two plants.

The issue seems to be that they need 5 years or so to grow large enough and put down enough roots, at least under my growing conditions.

The berries are tasty, and work well on ice cream or cereal.

Those of us used to planting annuals need to reset our timing expectations for perennial crops!