Badass Tough Plants You Know Of

Privet.

Spreads by suckers and seed. Evergreen. Incredibly dense thickets. Will grow thirty feet in sun but even full shade won't stop it. Will pop out of any soil. Can coppice/pollard it several times a year.

Excellent year round goat forage. Chickens like the berries (a rare winter food source). Pretty white flowers.

Produces decent poles and firewood.

I nominate Goumi berry (Elaeagnus multiflora).  It gets a bad rap from the uneducated simply through association with other elaeagnus species that are considered invasive.  But not so with Goumi - I have many bushes over many years and have seen precious few seedlings.  It doesn't root sucker, either.

In my climate and region - clay soils, temperate, USDA zone 8, but right near to the border of zone 7, high annual rainfall but frequent summer droughts - Goumi has proven highly productive, highly ornamental, and pretty much bullet proof.  Even where I have stuck it in too much shade, it still grows and fruits, just not vigorously.  It seems to thrive on neglect and shrugs off periods of too much/too little rain.

I really don't know why more people aren't growing this species, both inside and outside of the Permieverse!  The only downside I will admit is that the occasional thorn makes dealing with the bush slightly unpleasant.  But still a lot better than brambles or wild raspberry or other truly prickly plants.

Matthew Nistico wrote:I nominate Goumi berry (Elaeagnus multiflora).  It gets a bad rap from the uneducated simply through association with other elaeagnus species that are considered invasive.  But not so with Goumi - I have many bushes over many years and have seen precious few seedlings.  It doesn't root sucker, either.

In my climate and region - clay soils, temperate, USDA zone 8, but right near to the border of zone 7, high annual rainfall but frequent summer droughts - Goumi has proven highly productive, highly ornamental, and pretty much bullet proof.  Even where I have stuck it in too much shade, it still grows and fruits, just not vigorously.  It seems to thrive on neglect and shrugs off periods of too much/too little rain.

I really don't know why more people aren't growing this species, both inside and outside of the Permieverse!  The only downside I will admit is that the occasional thorn makes dealing with the bush slightly unpleasant.  But still a lot better than brambles or wild raspberry or other truly prickly plants.

I have three goumis I started from cuttings two years ago.  Absolute tanks. My dad ripped one of them out of the ground on accident and we put it back in with no ill effects.

No fruit yet though.

Sam Shade wrote:I have three goumis I started from cuttings two years ago.  Absolute tanks. My dad ripped one of them out of the ground on accident and we put it back in with no ill effects.

No fruit yet though.

Well, get ready because, when they do start fruiting, they fruit A LOT!

I have both seedling and named cultivar goumis.  I have to say that the named cultivars are worth it in terms of superior fruit quality.  Since I have so many, I think this coming season I will observe and mark all of the seedling goumi bushes in my food forest for deletion.  I can use that space for something else and, so long as you have at least three or four thriving, producing goumi bushes, you have all the berries you could likely need.  I'm sure I have more like 10 or a 12 cultivar bushes that would remain.

I have grown goji berries.  It’s easy to confuse the two names.

The goji berries spread by runners, taking over the bed.  The thorns were wicked!  I would not plant them again except where sheep would eat them repeatedly.

The information here on goumis makes me think I will try them.  Thanks berry much

Osage Orange.

Once established, absolutely nothing stops it short of ripping out every single root—which is almost impossible.

Nothing stops it!



Eric

Matthew Nistico wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:I have three goumis I started from cuttings two years ago.  Absolute tanks. My dad ripped one of them out of the ground on accident and we put it back in with no ill effects.

No fruit yet though.

Well, get ready because, when they do start fruiting, they fruit A LOT!

I have both seedling and named cultivar goumis.  I have to say that the named cultivars are worth it in terms of superior fruit quality.  Since I have so many, I think this coming season I will observe and mark all of the seedling goumi bushes in my food forest for deletion.  I can use that space for something else and, so long as you have at least three or four thriving, producing goumi bushes, you have all the berries you could likely need.  I'm sure I have more like 10 or a 12 cultivar bushes that would remain.

That's exciting - I've heard very good things about the taste and nutrient profile of goumi berries..

Mine hold their leaves into early winter but I want to expand into the evergreen elaegnus. I understand ebbingei is a favorite landscaping shrub. My hope is a hypervigorous, low maintenance, year round fodder source for goats and rabbits.  Any berries for me  and mine are gravy.

It's interesting how the same plant can be well behaved in one place and be a nuisance in another.  Goji berry bushes are welcomed in my garden, pollinators and birds like them. I even plant cuttings to form an edible hedge but it takes lots of amendments to creat the soil type they like. If they get too big and messy, I just cut them down to the ground in winter. Long arching branches can be trellised or pruned to reduce layering.

Osage oranges are sporadic where I am and they are tall trees with thick trunks, sometimes even as a specimen tree in the yard. I tried to grow a hedge along my property line with hundreds of seeds with zero germination.

Invasives such as Japanese honeysuckle, burning bush and multiflora rose are my worst enemies.