Best Honeyberry Varieties for Scotland

Honeyberry, also sold as haskap, is new enough to UK gardens that the choice is short: two well-described cultivarsA plant variety that arose or was bred under cultivation and is kept true by deliberate propagation, rather than a naturally occurring wild species. Full definition →, Zojka and Morena, plus one botanical variety, var. edulis. Since the plant needs a second, different cultivar to fruit, most gardens will grow two of them anyway.

What Scotland means for the choice

Winter cold isn't the problem. The shrub is rated H7The RHS's H1a–H7 scale for how much cold a plant can survive outdoors, H1a being tender indoor-only and H7 hardy anywhere in the UK. Full definition →, the hardiest rating, with figures for the cold it survives ranging from -20°C to -40°C. The flowers are the weak point: they open in winter and very early spring, around early March in Scotland, and tolerate only about -7°C, so a hard frost at flowering can cost the crop. No cultivar is known to flower late enough to avoid that, so a sheltered site out of a frost pocketA low-lying spot where cold air drains and pools on still nights, making it noticeably more frost-prone than the surrounding area. Full definition →, and fleece ready on a cold night during flowering, matter more than which variety you pick. Check your area's frost dates. The honeyberry growing guide covers planting, pollination, pruning and harvesting.

The payoff for flowering so early is fruit at the end of June and into early July, making honeyberry the earliest outdoor soft fruit crop grown in Scotland. The James Hutton Institute works with the Scottish Honeyberry Growers Cooperative, which grows around 15 varieties across roughly 72 acres, though those varieties aren’t named.

None holds the RHS Award of Garden Merit, a UK-wide award rather than a Scottish one.

Zojka

Zojka is the pick for yield: a vigorous shrub with very heavy crops of large, very sweet berries, up to 3cm. Honeyberry takes years to reach full size, so a heavy-cropping cultivar makes the most of the wait. Give it 1–1.5m each way.

Morena

Morena is a var. kamtschatica cultivar like Zojka, with sweet fruit and the same H7 hardiness, but it spreads only 0.5–1m. That makes it the one for a small garden, and the natural partner for Zojka: both flower in the same winter window, so they pollinate each other.

Var. edulis

Var. edulis and var. kamtschatica are the two botanical varieties picked out for the best-tasting fruit. Var. edulis has sweet, burgundy-red flesh, but it isn't a named cultivar, so there's less to go on for size or yield. Grow it where Zojka or Morena aren't available. Other names such as Kirke and var. altaica turn up in catalogues, but with no hardiness, flowering or size details to compare.

Which one for your situation

• Most gardens: Zojka and Morena, planted together.
• A heavy crop: Zojka.
• A small garden: Morena, as one of the pair.
• Neither in stock: var. edulis, with a second, different plant.
• A frost pocket, or blossom lost to late frosts before: no cultivar solves this; plant somewhere more sheltered and fleeceA lightweight, breathable fabric laid or draped over plants to trap a little warmth and keep off frost, wind and some flying pests. Full definition → during flowering.

Pests and diseases don't differ between them. Watch for honeysuckle aphids, powdery mildew and glasshouse whitefly, plus thrips and fungal leaf spot, and, rarely, silver leaf and honey fungus.

Common questions

Sources