Strawberry Trees

Arbutus Unedo Hedging

The Strawberry Tree, Arbutus unedo, is a small tree or medium sized shrub that can be used as a hedging plant.
Strawberry Tree is good for hedges up to about 3 metres high, although in time it can reach up to about 6-8 metres if it grows freely as a tree.

Strawberry Tree hedge plants are only delivered pot-grown, year round.
All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

See our selection of evergreen hedging plants or see our full range of hedging.

Spacing an Strawberry Tree hedge:
Plant Strawberry Tree hedging at 2 plants per metre, 50cms apart.

General description of Strawberry Tree plants:
These attractive evergreen bushes or small trees are usually grown as an ornamental specimen, but they make a decent hedge. They will grow quite quickly to about 3 metres and then become much less vigorous. If they aren't pruned, old strawberry trees tend to become beautifully slender, with a narrow spread of upright stems topped by pom-pom shaped heads of leaves. Old trees have handsome, rich brown gnarled bark that slowly flakes away. The flowers are white and bell-shaped (like Lily-of the valley), opening in autumn. Because the fruit take a whole year to ripen on the tree, you get a display of delicate flowers and strawberry red fruit at the same time. It has leaves that are sometimes tinged with red, with a serrated edge.

History & uses of Arbutus unedo:
The name unedo is Latin for "I eat one", which refers to the fact that although the fruit are perfectly edible, they aren't very nice and leave you with a funny aftertaste. In our opinion, it's best to leave them for the birds and squirrels, but you can experiment with using them in jam to make them tastier.
They are also known as cane apples or the Dalmatian strawberry. They are native in Southern Ireland, where they are known as the Killarney Strawberry, which is a town in county Kerry.