Welcome to my Food Forest where I grow an number of fruits in the Bee Better Teaching Garden. Information in this fruit series is based on knowledge I’ve gained growing in hardiness zone 7b, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Helen Yoest
Kind:
Latin Name: Aronia melanocarpa
Common Name: Black Chokeberry
Type: Deciduous shrub
Height: 3 to 6 feet
Spread: 3 to 6 feet
Pollination: Self-pollinated. The flowers of red (Aronia arbutifolia) and black (Aronia melanocarpa) are virtually indistinguishable. Both are very attractive to pollinators, and their simple, open structure makes them accessible to a range of bee species, from the large bumblebees (Bombus spp.) to tiny sweat bees (Lasioglossum spp.). The berries of these two species are very astringent when ripe. They are an important late season food source for birds, who tend to leave them alone until late in the fall or even the next spring, when they have fermented and shriveled into wrinkled raisins.
Fruit Health Benefits: One of the top natural sources of antioxidants and other healthful compounds. Along with their high antioxidant capacity, the Aronia melanocarpa's main polyphenolic components also possess anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antimicrobial, antiviral, antidiabetic, antiatherosclerotic, hypotensive, antiplatelet, and anti-inflammatory properties.
Wildlife Benefits: Flowers providing nectar and pollen for bees; Robins, thrushes, grosbeaks, woodpeckers, jays, bluebirds, catbirds, kingbirds, and grouse eat chokecherries, and so do mice, voles, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks, foxes, deer, bear, and moose.
Origin of species: Eastern North American, cultivated by Native Americans as a food source.
Cultivars: Black—‘Viking’ or ‘Nero.’
Culture Information:
Sun: Full sun to part shade. Aronia does best in moist, well-draining soil that is slightly acidic. Plants are tolerant of alkaline pH, road salt, and a wide range of soils, including sand and clay. Aronia will even grow in wet soils, making it a good choice for boggy areas where little else will grow
Water: Moist, well-draining
Habitat: Low woodlands, swamps, bogs, and moist thickets along the East coast. Great plantings for a rain garden.
Care:
Plant: Aronia best in moist, well-draining soil that is slightly acidic. Plants are tolerant of alkaline pH, road salt, and a wide range of soils, including sand and clay. Aronia will even grow in wet soils, making it a good choice for boggy areas where little else will grow
Fertilizer/pH: Needs little or no supplemental fertilizer. If desired, apply a balanced slow-release fertilizer in spring. I don’t tend to use fertilizers, so this suggested isn’t practiced in the Bee Better Naturally Garden.
Mulch: None needed. If fertilizer is added, add a thin layer of compost around the base of the plants.
Groom/Prune: Can shape, but black chokeberry makes a natural looking shrub form that, I believe, should be embraced.
Pest/Disease Control: Aronia yields are the apple maggot, brown marmorated stink bug, cherry fruit worm, grasshoppers, Japanese beetle, spotted wing drosophila, and tarnished plant bug. Fingers crossed, I’ve not had any of these problems.
Propagation: Expanding your amount of aronia berries is simple! Once mature enough to produce suckers, slice off a sucker and transplant to the new location.
Comments:
Black chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa, was my first foraged food as a young girl. I found a thicket of black chokeberry shrubs next to a swale that flows into the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, VA. Although the berries were bitter-tasting fresh from the shrub, I kept eating anyway. It never occurred to make something out of them.
The Aronia genus has three similar species, except for the color of their fruit—black, red, or purple—and all have berries with good flavor, though astringent-tasting when eaten raw.
Both red and black chokeberries are native to North America. The black chokeberry is native from Maine to Georgia and north to Minnesota, while the red chokeberry is native from Maine to east Texas but not the Midwest.
I recommend and grow Aronia melanocarpa, a black chokeberry, over the red Aronia arbutifolia, because of the benefits black has over red. Here is a short summary:
RED:
Red has better fall color, but I grow it for food and wildlife. Color would only be a bonus.
The red berries last long, but that is only because the birds don’t favor them as much as black ones and will only eat them as a last resort.
Red has suckering stems, which I would mind if the shrub had desirable food and wildlife traits. But in a small space, it is not desirable.
The rabbits like the stems, so while you are feeding the rabbit population, it is at the sacrifice of the birds, assuming they get hungry enough to want the berries!
BLACK:
Black is rising in popularity among gardeners and landscapers and, as I mentioned above, with foodies.
Rabbits don’t seem to bother with black, leaving fruit for us and wildlife.
If you are interested in growing aronia for its health benefits, the black is the one you should be growing. Red doesn’t have as many antioxidants as black.
Black fruit also has the highest amount of antioxidants of any fruit.
Both red and black are very astringent when eating fresh, but others have reported freezing fresh berries to reduce astringency, although I’ve not tried this…yet.
Chokeberries taste best dried. Mix in when making muffins or sugar-up with jams or juices.
Black chokeberry has a smaller, fuller, more attractive form than its red-fruiting relative, making it a great landscape shrub too..