- The tiny little leaves on this tree right here
are the beginnings of a plant called jujube,
which is something I actually thought
was only a candy that I used to scarf down in the nineties.
- Jujube?
- But in fact, it's a delicious fruit,
and we're gonna show you exactly how to grow it
in today's video.
So this is one of my two jujube plants.
That, to be honest, I actually thought I may have killed,
but it turns out I'm lucky and they're still alive
but mine are just budding up.
Chris, one of our growers up in Vancouver, BC
on the Epic Gardening team,
she's been growing these for a while.
So let's head up there and learn from Chris
exactly how to care for jujube trees.
- If this giant raisin like fruit looks familiar,
then you probably know that we are talking about the jujube
or jujube tree, also known as Chinese date or red date.
Now in this dried form, you may have seen them
in Asian grocery stores or maybe perhaps
you've seen the fresh form towards the fall
when they are in season.
So they kind of look like bright green crab apples
with a bit of brown mottling.
Either way, they are delicious and highly nutritious.
Hey, it's Chris,
and today we are talking about jujubes,
or ziziphus jujuba.
and how to care for this plant
and whether it's a good fit for you,
especially if you've been considering this plant
for your own garden.
Now stay tuned, because I'll be going over this
really unique pruning method that is quite specific
to these younger jujube trees.
Even though the fruit look like little apples,
jujubes don't belong to the rosaceae family,
which is the family that gives us
pears, cherries, and apples.
This plant is in the rhamnaceae family, the same family
that the sun and heat-loving California lilac shrub
belongs in.
So it's no surprise that jujubes thrive
in similar hot conditions.
What's also neat about jujubes is,
because they originate from all over Asia,
including those colder mountainous regions,
is that these plants are actually well adept
to cold climate growing,
making them a fantastic tree option for many gardens.
Once you start researching these trees
you will soon realize that there are many cultivars
to choose from.
Now the nursery standard, or at least in North America
has always been Li and Lang.
Those are very popular and they perform well,
but here I have Black Sea,
there is this Emperor's Ghi,
which is supposed to be a larger fruiting one,
and this cutie here is Coco with small fruit
that it's supposed to taste kind of like coconut.
So there are lots to choose from.
Pick something that sounds delicious to you,
and also something that suits your garden.
With all these different cultivars,
research to see what their mature height is.
Some of them are a little bit more dwarfing,
some of them will grow quite large.
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Regardless of which cultivar you go with,
when you have this in your garden,
you are adding a lot of ornamental value,
because they are beautiful trees.
The leaves are glossy and just very lovely.
The stems have this wonderful zigzag pattern to them
that you can really appreciate when the plant defoliates
at the end of the season.
Now I do wanna mention
that these stems are covered with thorns,
so you do have to take care when handling this plant.
If you are wondering what the flowers look like,
that's a good thing to wonder, because they are not showy.
They are actually tucked away
between these leaves on these little branchlets.
And this is actually where the fruit is going to form.
Now the flowers appear in summer,
and although you can't see
the chartreuse yellow flowers emerge,
most of the time, you can smell them.
So they have this beautiful scent,
and on the topic of flowers, if you're wondering
if you need a buddy plant to help with crosspollination,
it does help with the yields.
So if you can plant another tree close by, go for it.
Just pick a separate cultivar,
otherwise these plants are sort of partially self-fertile,
so after three years with the right conditions,
they may be able to set fruit on their own.
So earlier I mentioned that this plant
really appreciates heat and sun,
so when you go to plant this plant,
look for a spot that gets eight or more hours of sun,
and that way the plant will be happy
and it will give you more fruit.
Now, this plant I did mention
can handle colder temperatures,
and it is hearty, down to zone five,
but if you are trying to grow in a colder zone,
you do have to keep in mind
that with these shorter growing seasons,
you need to keep the plant as cozy as you can.
So whether that means you plant it
in front of a south-facing wall,
or you construct some sort of heat sink around it,
you have to find some way to keep it as warm as possible.
And this is especially true
if you live in a climate like mine,
where it's consistently wet and cold
for a huge chunk of the year.
So what I'm gonna do with these trees
is situate it in a sunny spot,
kind of at the highest point as possible
so that the water will drain freely down
sort of like the slope away from the plant
so it's not sitting in this soupy mess of soil.
And on that note, when it comes to watering these plants,
they don't need a lot of water.
So yes, during the fruiting season, water it,
that's how it's gonna pump out a lot of fruit for you,
but for the most part, for many areas,
they can handle near drought-like conditions
once they are established.
So you don't need to put them on some irrigation schedule.
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Care and maintenance for jujubes could not be easier.
So if you're a gardener looking for something
that's totally easy and hands off,
this could be the tree for you,
because you don't have to worry
about fertilizing this thing.
It is a medium to fast grower.
You will see growth regardless of
what kind of inputs you give it.
If you do choose to apply a fertilizer,
look for something low on the NPK,
just look for a nice balanced one.
Don't go for anything that's high in nitrogen,
because you really don't want the plant
to pump out a lot of fresh, weak growth.
Even though the plant is, for the most part,
not susceptible to a whole bunch of pests and diseases.
You just wanna keep the plant as strong as possible,
and that just means just letting it do its own thing
when we're talking about this plant.
Now, when it comes to pruning, for larger trees,
like if you have something that's over 10 to 20 feet tall,
you want to check on it when it's dormant
like during the wintertime,
and look for the three Ds.
The dead, diseased, and damaged and prune those limbs off.
But for the most part, you don't really have to prune
for maintenance, unless there are some parts
that are getting a little bit too big,
and you just wanna take those in a little bit.
Now for these younger trees,
the pruning method is actually quite interesting.
Before we get into details,
I just wanna say that this is not necessary.
You can have a beautiful jujube tree
without this pruning during this young stage,
but there is this saying
when it comes to pruning these trees, which is,
"one cut stops, two cuts shoot."
And this is specific to jujubes.
With the pruning of apples or pear whips
or these very young stick like trees,
what you would do to encourage the lateral growth
is to snip off the tip,
so that affects the hormones of the plant,
and then the lower buds will bush out laterally.
That's how you start forming the nice shape of these,
let's say, apple trees.
Now with jujubes, if you just snip off the tip,
it's not gonna do anything.
It will not encourage these lower buds to branch out.
So one cut stops.
It just stops it from growing tall.
It not going to push anything out.
So to encourage these bottom buds to bush out,
if you want to maintain a certain height,
you would snip the top,
and then also find the the next node down,
or this next stem down, and snip that as well.
So that is the second cut.
And once that is done, then the plant will respond
by pushing out the lateral growth underneath,
and that's how you get a nicer form to the younger tree.
Again, this is totally optional.
If you wanna keep it nice and simple,
just let it do its thing,
and it's gonna look beautiful as it grows up.
So if right now you're thinking,
"wow, this is a really cool plant.
How do I propagate it?"
Well, in the nursery trade, these plants are grafted,
so this upper cion is the cultivar,
and it's grafted onto this rootstock at the bottom.
So this is how it's done in the trade.
Now, if you want to graft your own, totally give it a try.
There are a lot of resources on how to graft fruit trees.
So if you like to experiment that way, give that a shot.
But if you don't want to head into the grafting world
and you have an existing tree around
that shows suckering habit,
meaning around the base of the main plant,
you see these shoots pop up,
you can easily excavate around the base,
sever those little shoots, pot them up,
and you have your instant plants.
So that is super easy if you have a tree that does that.
And if you're wondering about starting from seed,
it is kind of doable, but the germination
and just overall success rate is quite low.
And even in controlled studies
where they apply the right seed treatment
like warm and cold, warm and cold seed stratification,
the overall germination rate is less than 50%.
So if you wanna experiment, you can give it a try,
but the other two methods,
you're gonna see much better success.
Overall, I would say the jujube tree
is worth growing in any garden situation
if you have the space and you get some light.
It checks so many boxes.
It is easy care, it is beautiful,
and it also produces those nutritious fruit.
Now, the only thing with this tree is that it's a tree,
and it will want that space to grow
to reach its full potential.
And depending on the cultivar you choose,
these trees can get quite large.
So they need the space.
And that means, unfortunately,
a container will not be its permanent home,
at least for me in my garden.
So hopefully today's video gave you some insight
on this plant if you were considering it
for your garden.
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you in the next video.
- This is my second jujube.
This is the Li and Lang variety that Chris spoke about,
but I'm excited to grow them this year.
I hope you've learned a lot about this.
Get some jujubes in your garden this year.
Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.