They even grow well in large rooftop containers! People appreciate Amelanchier as a landscape plant, but very few taste the fruit. These are highly adaptable plants and they’ll tolerate some shade and drought, although the fruit crop will be diminished by both.

In nature they grow in full to part sun (more sun produces more flowers and fruit), and many different soil types.

Serviceberry comes in both tree and shrub (multi-trunk) forms, and is often used in home landscapes, both for its early, white spring flowers, and its outstanding, orange fall foliage. But since that common name actually predates colonial America, the explanation doesn’t hold up. The name Serviceberry is often explained by the story that in colonial America, Amelanchier flowers signaled when the ground had thawed enough to bury everyone who died over the winter (funeral service, get it?). (The Canadian city was named after the plant.) In western North America it’s known as Saskatoon, from the Cree name for the plant. Blow is derived from the Old English word meaning to bloom. It’s called Shadblow because its flowers tell you when the shad are running and at their most delicious. Amelanchier is sometimes called Juneberry because in some parts of the country (like the part where somebody named it Juneberry) the berries ripen in June.

If you don’t mid my getting all plant-geeky for a minute, I’d like to circle back to all those common names. Slightly larger than a blueberry, it tastes like a mashup of strawberry, blueberry, and just a touch of almond. So let’s call it Serviceberry or Saskatoon or Shadblow or Juneberry…this plant has no shortage of common names! Whatever you call it, the fruit is delicious. Amelanchier is tricky to pronounce if you’ve never heard it said out loud: am-eh-lan-kee-er.

How to you pronounce amelanchier