Growing Jujubes: The "Weird Apple" That Tastes Absolutely Delicious!

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. But in fact, it's a delicious fruit. I'm going to 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 are 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 modeling either way. They are delicious and highly nutritious. Hey, it's Chris. And today we are talking about jujubes or Zizifis 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 Ramnaceae 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-adapted 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 a Black Sea. There is this Empress Gee, which is supposed to be a larger fruiting one. And this cutie here is Coco with small fruit. That'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, 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 want to mention that the 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 cross-pollination, 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 hardy 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 going to do with these trees is situated 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 going to 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 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 want to 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 winter time and look for the three D's 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 of it that are getting a little bit too big. And you just want to 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 want to 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 push 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 going to do anything. It will not encourage these lower buds to branch out. So one cut stops. It just stops it from growing tall. It's 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, um, 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 want to keep it nice and simple, just let it do its thing. And it's going to 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 scion is the cultivar and it's grafted onto this root stock 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 pop 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 want to experiment, you can give it a try, but the other two methods you're going to 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.