Pomegranate blossom

I remember when I was little going to my Great Aunt Cora’s house in Commerce, TX  and eating pomegranates from her trees.  She had two or three lining one of those old driveways that was just two concrete strips with a strip of grass in between.  Anyway, I fell in love with pomegranates way back then.

But, not only are pomegranates good to eat – all the craze these days, in fact, but they are absolutely gorgeous plants!  The are very heat and drought tolerant, but they can be winter tender.  They actually love alkaline soils.  Mine is already blooming like crazy and will have the big red fruit in the fall.  It’s kind of bushy, and some of the stems are a bit spiky… not actual thorns, but close enough to call a thorn. Pomegranates can handle seasonal rains, but they like dry feet and will develop root rot if they stay wet for too long.

Pomegranate Fruiting

The pomegranate is not a Texas native.  It comes from Europe and Asia, especially the Mediterranean areas, dating back to about 1000BC.  It is not invasive, however.  It was introduced to the Carribean and Latin America by Spanish Colonist and has been in North America at least since 1762.

“Don’t use the pomegranate inhospitably, a stranger that has come so far to pay his respects to thee,” the English QuakerPeter Collinson wrote to the botanizing John Bartram in Philadelphia, 1762.

Thomas Jefferson even had pomegranates at Montcello.

My pomegranate come form a cutting from a friend about 4 years ago and it is now starting to really bear fruit well.  It looks like it will be loaded this year.