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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-378
Medlar
Crataegus germanica
Medlar's fruit is rock-hard and sour until it is picked late in autumn and left to blett - softening and browning until it turns sweet enough to eat raw or cook into jelly. The small, crooked-limbed tree has been grown across Europe since antiquity and flowers later than most orchard trees, feeding pollinators after the spring rush has passed. It also shrugs off the fireblight and rust that plague apples, pears and quince, so it works well as a low-input stand-in for them rather than planted beside them. One tree is enough - it is self-fertile and can start bearing in as little as three years.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 5–8
- Soil
- Loam
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 6–7.5
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 15–20 ft
- Mature spread
- 15–20 ft
- Plant spacing
- 20–30 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- None
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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