r/Berries • u/spaacingout • 8d ago
Haskap/Fly Honeysuckle
I’m curious if anyone here has grown this enigmatic berry, or might know of another fruit that would do well in colder climates?
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u/DwayneGretzky306 8d ago
Haskaps are my favourite plant. Started with ~8 little $3 sprigs....most of them are a different variety.
The Aurora variety is the sweetest. I am in zone 3b, planted on the north side of my property - other than watering the first year, and some weeding the first two years - they have grown absolutely excellent, lots of berries in June.
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u/Ambitious-Schedule63 8d ago
How are these (flavor-wise)? Have always been interested in them.
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u/princessbubbbles 8d ago
Blueberry-mixed berry-sweet&sour flavor. A coworker said the sweetness was like the sweetness in soy sauce, but I don't know about that. They're worth trying if you can get your hands on them. They're also more fun to pick than blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries because of their size & shape. A good choice if you have kids around :)
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u/sciguy52 8d ago
Yeah this is variety dependent. A lot of the old varieties can have a vinegar like taste and are not great. The more recently bred ones are good.
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u/princessbubbbles 7d ago
Interesting, I'll keep that in mind this year when I taste test and look into our varieties!
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u/brokenfingers11 8d ago
Grew a few plants some years back, from Stark, 3/4 gallon pots. Got berries the first year, even though only a foot high. Taste was good (like blueberry, maybe not as intense). But critters ate most of them, and couldn’t figure out how to stop it (tried nets, even pegged them to the ground, reflective tape, that rotten-egg stuff, I think even coyote pee (didn’t realize that was cruel, at the time)). I live in New England, got some woods not far from my garden, could never figure out whether it was birds or chipmunks. Decided to stick with raspberries (black, red, yellow) and blackberries (and recently kiwi berries) - critters don’t go after them in the same way.
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u/sciguy52 8d ago
Taste varies by variety. A lot of old varieties are sour and not the best. Some of the newer varieties are good to great. Aurora has a sort of blackberry jam taste and is my and other people's hands down favorite. Boreal Beast has elements of blueberry taste, but not a lot. It is a pleasant sweet with a bit of sour taste. Can't quite think of another fruit that would be like it, hints of blueberry, some pleasant lite sourness which I can't think of something similar. In any case they are their own taste and worth growing. If you don't want any sour Aurora is the one. But as I said in Beast the sour is not bad or unpleasant or overwhelming. Some of the other good varieties may have a bit less of sourness. The old varieties can be sour to bitter. Very important note, they are not ripe when they turn blue, they need another week or two on the bush after that. If you pick right when it turns blue it will be sour.
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u/Toomanydamnfandoms 7d ago
I must have had one of the newer varieties mentioned in the comments because it tasted a lot like a normal blueberry to me.
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u/NorEaster_23 8d ago
If you live somewhere in North America around zone 5-6 (maybe 7?) try getting Japanese varieties they'll fare our hot summers better than Russian varieties. Also be less likely to leaf out during warm spells in the middle of winter and get zapped by freezes
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u/dob_bobbs 8d ago
Had a really hot dry summer and mine all just died. They definitely aren't for the hotter climates, even before this summer they just didn't thrive. Shame, I can't grow true blueberries and would have liked to grow honey berry.
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u/ThetaDot3 8d ago
I live in a wine growing region and they do really well here. I'm in Canada though, so my definition of "hot and dry" is probably different. Summers are regularily in the 90s, but max 100 fahrenheit.
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u/NorEaster_23 8d ago
Yeah as a last resort I planted mine partially under a thornless honeylocust tree where woodland strawberries are thriving. Also an extreme northern species that hates our summer heat but thrives in shady areas.
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u/digitalispurp 8d ago
Zone 8b. I have 4 plants. Planted them 4 years ago. They've done well. Birds love them. I'm not a big fan of the fruit, so I don't mind. I prefer blueberries and thornless blackberries.
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u/spaacingout 8d ago
Awesome. I’m guessing you’re in a much colder climate than I am! We vary from 5a to 7b due to the coastline and nearby mountains.
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u/princessbubbbles 8d ago
My work sells them, and they fruit at our nursery! They are very clearly in the honeysuckle genus, so they're really easy to propagate. If you buy more mature plants that are maybe two to three feet and potted, the likelihood of survival goes up dramatically. I will admit, I do eat some of the flowers. They just taste so good, just like vine honeysuckle! The berries are this weird mixed berry flavor. They're not as sweet as you expect from one of their names, honeyberry. That's honestly fine by me. They're super juicy and make good jam. Another thing I like about them is how most varieties ripen before blueberries, so they pair nicely if you are trying to space out fruiting seasons of your garden to always have fresh fruit available.
Note: make sure to get 2 individuals to cross pollinate. Not all will have overlapping flowering times, so make use of all the handy pollination charts online.
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u/anotherrandomcanuck 7d ago
I have several in my garden. Zone 7, and they have ripe fruit well in advance of anything else in my garden. Can be a little on the tart side but a welcome treat regardless after a long winter.
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u/Ok-Zookeepergame2196 8d ago
Bought a pair 2 years ago, they grow slow so no fruit yet. They do mold a lot though, each year 1 of them got a fungus and lost their leaves.
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u/-Allthekittens- 8d ago
I don't grow them but there is a Haskap berry farm not far from me and I'm in zone 3a in Northern BC (Canada). Nothing is in greenhouses and we get COLD (as low as -40s) , long winters. I don't know if they wrap them overwinter but I don't think so. They are quite hardy
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u/sciguy52 8d ago
Yeah I grow them. I am not in their ideal environment but have managed. I would recommend certain varieties over others. Some varieties don't taste great, some are superb. Highly recommend Aurora for sure as one of the best I have tasted and confirmed by a lot of other growers. Boreal Beast is another good one and the overlap in flowering is enough for pollination. I have Maxine's Opus which is supposed to be really good but have not tasted it yet. Solo is good as is Maxie. Boreal Beauty is also good. Note a lot of the older Honeyberry varieties have some sour and or bitter tastes. So a lot of what is sold out there is so-so. Whatever you get check bloom times, some are early, some mid, some late. And most important of all, when they turn blue they are not ripe yet. You need to leave them on for another week or two to get the good taste. They will be sour if you pick them when the turn blue.
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u/ReactionAble7945 7d ago
I am pretty sure I foraged some of these one day. I was expecting a blueberry taste/texture and didn't get it. So I spit it out.
It wasn't bad tasting. It was sweet. The texture through me off. Less solid, more slimy. Knowing what it is later on, I would try again, but.. what I tried may have been past ripe.
I would not grow without tasting again FIRST
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u/mossfluff 7d ago
There’s a farm in Interior Alaska that carries these as honeyberries, so there’s some cultivars that can handle the cold quite well.
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u/moresnowplease 5d ago
I was just about to mention them! I also know a few other people in interior Alaska who have had honey berry bushes for around 10 years now.
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u/cowsruleusall 8d ago
Holy hell people in Zone 8??? Wow that's impressive.
Haskaps are very finnicky when it comes to water and temeprature. They're from environments that stay extremely cold and get most of their moisture as snow and not rain. They don't do well in warm climates or with wet feet and will have a bad tendency to get powdery mildew if they're too wet or too hot.
Definitely needs two different varieties to produce well, but if you keep them happy they'll go crazy. Oddly tolerant of road salt too.
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u/simgooder 8d ago
Planted a “combo” 2’ potted plant 3 years ago and it loves it here in zone 5b. Had the opposite experience of other commenters.
Fruited first year, doubled in size each year since. Survived drought, and lots of rain. I don’t water it, and it gets mulched in fall and spring with whatever I have; compost, hay, leaves.
Easy to propagate from cuttings. I now have 5 plants.
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u/BenGrimmspaperweight 8d ago
Have been working through 15 pounds of these we picked last year and froze. Great for smoothies and in oatmeal!
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u/torrent7 8d ago
Zone 8b, I planted 6 and they've done great (3 years to fully produce though).
Of the 6, boreal is my only bad one, ill replace it this spring since I never use the fruit
I want to say Maxine opus, blue Pacific, and blue Hokkaido are the best
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u/jpb1111 8d ago
In upstate NY near Albany. Been growing them for 12+years. Great vegetative growth usually,, but very few berries. The ones that do ripen get eaten quickly by animals, so I get to sample a couple each year. They flower early so lack of pollinators is an issue, but increasing temperatures may "help" in that area going forward,, but that also affects the cold loving nature of the plant. I'm trying adding more potassium, but usually just use nettles manure. Bird netting might help, but also might create mildew issues. It's like a long term waiting game for them to be productive of more fruit. Frustrating. Flavor-wise the strains I have Berry Blue, Borealis, and another one I can't remember all have been underwhelming. Sour more than sweet, they really need to be fully ripe. I wish I had more to experiment with, they'd probably be great mixed with black raspberries and wild strawberry. I also noticed last year that the ones I have are inclined to revert to a vining nature instead of staying in bush form. I did a lot of pruning.
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u/MasterRanger7494 8d ago
I have a few of these plants. They've been growing great in my zone 7ish area. No berries really though might need to do something about that.
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u/WinterWontStopComing 8d ago
I spent around a hundred bucks last year to buy two live plants. Neither survived very long. It was a super rainout early spring. A lot of mold and fungus. Was super disappointed. Had been wanting them for years.
I did get a few berries to try at least
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u/spaacingout 8d ago
Really! Wow, I’ve been trying to find some fruits that do well in the cold and Haskap was one of the most frequently mentioned for snowy climates.
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u/WinterWontStopComing 8d ago
Same. Mine arrived at the beginning of almost three straight weeks of cold rain, I cannot stress the rainout conditions enough.
Just mention so that if you go the route I did and also have bad luck, maybe you won’t be caught as off guard by their death as I was. Waste of birthday money.
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u/Past_Log_7596 8d ago
I’m in zone 8, I have one doing well I planted last year, one died, bought 2 more small ones that appear to doing well, I read that you have to have 2 in order for them to produce.