Pomegranate

Fri, 09/11/2009 - 7:24am — Kathy Ormiston

Photo Credit:

Marianne Mueller

Botanical Name:

Punica granatum

Pronunciation:

(PU-ni-kuh grah-NAT-um)

Common Name:

Pomegranate

Plant Type:

Shrub

Mature Size:

15 ft. to 20 ft. tall and wide, but can prune smaller

Water Requirements:

Low: water every 3 weeks until the root ball is wet

Sun/Shade Requirements:

Full sun

Flower Color :

Orange-red flowers with ornamental yellow, orange, or red fruit

We are always looking for small, well-behaved shrubs for the perennial garden. Pomegranates fit the bill nicely. Pomegranates flower in the early summer and have attractive golden leaf color in the late fall. The fruit, which forms in the mid-fall, adds color to the fall garden. One drawback is pomegranates lose all their leaves in the winter and don't have a particularly attractive branching structure.

Sunset's Western Garden Book recommends regular water, but says pomegranates tolerate considerable drought. We have found that pomegranates do quite well with deep and infrequent watering. Another bonus of a low water regime is the tree grows more slowly and requires less frequent pruning.

In our garden, we prune pomegranates in the late winter to maintain them as shrubs. Since pomegranates can grow to be quite large, some gardeners may choose to prune off the bottom branches of the shrub to give the plant a pleasing tree-like form.

There are a number of ornamental cultivars that are grown for showy flowers. There are also dwarf cultivars. We do not grow these pommegranates in the Palo Alto Demonstration Garden, but encourage you to give them a try.