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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-532
Natal Plum
Carissa macrocarpa
Natal plum is a spiny evergreen shrub grown for a red, cranberry-flavoured fruit eaten raw when fully ripe or cooked into jellies, syrups and preserves - and it ripens through the year rather than in one flush, so it is more a picking-as-you-pass crop than a harvest glut. Its stiff forked spines and dense growth make an effective animal-proof hedge, while dwarf cultivars spread low and thick enough to work as ground cover instead. It comes from coastal dunes in southern Africa, tolerates salt spray and drought once established, but is stopped cold by hard freezes.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 9–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate · Moist
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 5–8
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 5–13.1 ft
- Mature spread
- 7–10 ft
- Plant spacing
- 24–35 in
- Root type
- Not yet recorded
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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