A Strawberry Tree Grows in Seattle: Rediscovering an Ancient Evergreen — Top 10 Permaculture Species

Why This Overlooked Mediterranean Native Belongs in Pacific Northwest Landscapes

The strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo, never seems in step with its neighbors. While other trees surrender their leaves and settle into rest, it carries two seasons at once. Last year’s fruit still hangs red against the branches even as new flowers open, white and delicate. Blossom and berry together—time layered, not linear. To walk beneath it is to be reminded that growth does not arrive in neat succession. It overlaps. It astonishes.

Ripe on the sunny side only but I ate it anyway. Fruit of the Strawberry tree by the library steps in Eastsound, WA

Pliny the Elder wrote of the fruit with a shrug, unum edo—I eat one. Virgil placed its branches on the body of the fallen youth Pallas, a gesture of reverence and passage. In Ireland, relic groves survive on the Killarney lakes, reminders of a warmer epoch when such trees reached farther north. In Italy, its fruit, flower, and leaf—red, white, and green—came to stand as a living tricolore for unification. Across centuries, witnesses keep returning to this tree, each finding something of their own reflection in its contradictions.

Its science is no less remarkable. Evergreen leaves, thick and glossy, endure through drought and poor soil. The bark holds tannins once used to tan hides and dye cloth. Bees work the flowers late in the year, producing a honey so bitter it tastes almost medicinal. The fruit ferments into Portugal’s rustic medronho, a spirit with fire enough to hold a village together.

Nothing about this tree suggests abundance or ease. Its gifts come at the edges: dry soils, late seasons, forgotten uses. And yet, it persists—flowering and fruiting when no one expects it.

I think of my daughter in this way—not as a lesson drawn, but as a presence witnessed. Childhood still alive in her gestures, even as something older begins to emerge, more certain of itself. To stand beside her now is like seeing blossom and fruit share the same branch: past not yet gone, future already arriving. What a gift, simply to witness it.

Perhaps that is the deeper meaning of unedo. Not dismissal, as Pliny intended, but recognition that one fruit, one glimpse, is enough. More than enough. The strawberry tree teaches through astonishment, not instruction. And to walk beneath it with her hand in mine is to feel that astonishment alive—the resilience of green leaves in winter, the red fruit shining against the cold, the promise that what we witness together is what will endure.

The Grit and Glam of the Strawberry Tree

Today the strawberry tree is mostly overlooked, planted as an ornamental in parks and street edges. When I walk through Eastsound and pluck its fruit, people stop me with the same questions. What is that tree? Are the berries safe? I tell them its story—Pliny, Virgil, a Wolf story—and eventually press a fruit into their palm. Curiosity outweighs suspicion, and once they taste it, even with its mealy sweetness, something changes. The overlooked tree becomes visible.

Yet its functions run deeper than ornament or curiosity. The evergreen leaves shine through the winter, holding their waxy gloss when most deciduous canopies are bare. The bark and foliage are heavy with tannins, astringent to taste, once valued for dyeing and curing hides. Its flowers open late in the season, offering nectar when most sources have vanished. Bees make from it a bitter honey, dark as molasses, prized in Sardinia and Corsica for its medicinal strength. Birds come for the fruit, dispersing seed into the margins. Every part of the tree is woven into the ecology of endurance.

It is close kin to our Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii), another survivor of poor soils and salt air, with the same peeling bark and leathery leaves. To stand between the two is to feel the Atlantic and Pacific speaking across a long distance, the same family split by oceans but carrying the same strategy: thrive where little else will. Both are drought tolerant, both find footholds on rocky slopes, both cling to their leaves against wind and scarcity.

In a food forest, Arbutus unedo plays the role of margin-holder. It fills a canopy niche without demanding fertile soil. It offers fruit for people, nectar for pollinators, and evergreen shelter for birds. It tolerates drought, salt spray, thin ground, and still fruits through winter. Where apples sulk and pears go bare, the strawberry tree keeps producing, a steady companion on the edges of cultivation.

Underappreciated, yes—but it is precisely in its refusal to yield abundance too easily that the strawberry tree finds its place. Not every species needs to be generous in the same way. Some stand to remind us that resilience, persistence, and a handful of scarlet fruits in the dead of winter are riches enough.

Asynchronous phenology: Blossoms and ripening fruit on the same tree simultaneously.

Cultivation & Practical Notes

Soil & Site

• Prefers well-drained, neutral to slightly acidic soils but adapts to poor, rocky ground. Our soil here is naturally on the acidic side in many places, so it's a great match.

• Excellent drought tolerance once established; dislikes waterlogging.

• Thrives in full sun but tolerates partial shade.

Hardiness in the PNW

• Hardy to USDA Zone 7. Well-suited west of the Cascades.

• In the Pacific Northwest, it can withstand winter damp if given good drainage.

Fruit & Harvest

• Fruits ripen in late autumn into early winter. In the PNW, expect ripening from October through December, depending on the season’s warmth.

• The fruit is best eaten when it turns a deep red and soft to the touch; underripe fruits can be bland or astringent. The texture is rough and granular, like sugar crystals pressed into soft flesh.

• Flavor is mild and mealy fresh, but improves when cooked into jams, preserves, or fermented into wine/liqueur.

• Nutrition: Low in calories, high in vitamin C and antioxidants (polyphenols, flavonoids), rich in fiber from its rough skin, with moderate natural sugars and small amounts of minerals like potassium and magnesium.
  

Pollination & Ecology

• Self-fertile but benefits from cross-pollination.

• Flowers in late autumn provide nectar when few other sources are available, sustaining bees and other pollinators.

• Fruits are a reliable food source for birds and wildlife in winter.

Propagation

• Seed: Viable but slow. Seeds require cold stratification and may take a year to germinate.

• Cuttings: Semi-ripe cuttings in late summer can root with care.

• Grafting: Less common, but possible onto compatible Arbutus rootstocks (including Pacific madrone).

• Best established as container-grown saplings planted out in spring.

Management

• Minimal pruning needed; shape lightly if desired.

• Mulch young trees but avoid heavy feeding—this species thrives on neglect.

• Susceptible to root rot if overwatered.

Role in the Food Forest

• Functions as a canopy/mid-story tree in poor or marginal soils.

• Provides winter fruit, year-round evergreen cover, nectar for pollinators, and wildlife habitat.

• Companion to drought-tolerant guilds: olives, rosemary, lavender, figs, madrone.
  

  
  

The strawberry tree deserves to stand among the top ten permaculture trees for the Pacific Northwest. It thrives on neglect, tolerates drought, feeds pollinators late in the year, shelters birds in winter, and gives fruit when few others do. But its true gift is harder to measure: the way scarlet berries glow against bare branches in late Autumn, the way evergreen leaves catch the low winter light, the way it reminds us that beauty and resilience are not separate qualities but the same thing. To plant Arbutus unedo is to add not just function to a food web, but astonishment to a landscape—an inheritance of endurance that will outlast seasons, and perhaps us as well. Please subscribe for more:

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