acerola cherry

Acerola cherry is a wonderful large sized bush for those looking for a new challenge. Acerola is a newer introduction in the San Diego fruit garden, to see a few nice sized bushes go to the San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas. Acerola is a sun lover that, when mature, can produce more cherries than you can eat! The cherries are very flavorful and delicious, but with a catch. After about 4 hours of picking the cherries, the fruit flavor turns to a more cough syrup cherry flavor! The fruit is said to contain a much larger vitamin c content than practically any other fruit by weight or percentage. (About 2000 times higher than an orange) It's difficult to verify these findings but here is one place.

Acerola is difficult to propagate and the plants can be found for sale locally. Expect a high cost for a small plant. Expect to grow the Bush for some time before you get much fruit. The flowers are very pretty pink, the fruit is edible green or red, and falls to the ground after overripe. The bush can take full sun and produces more fruit there, but if you have an area with slight shade it still grows well. From my experience growing the mature bush it can take some drought conditions but should not be considered drought tolerant. Medium water is good but it prefers higher water. The bush has a preference for soils above Ph 5.5-6.5, and most plants we grow in San Diego want the opposite, an acidic soil.