Let us now praise the serviceberry

I don't remember coming across serviceberry trees or shrubs when I was growing up in northeastern Ohio. But I have come to love them more and more each year--the trees and their fruit--since moving to Iowa where I discovered them. 

We have three serviceberry trees on our property: 

• one about 20 feet tall alongside the alley--it was there when we moved in
• one about 10 feet tall in the front that the landscaper put in about 3 years ago
• a small one, about 6 feet tall behind the garden--it was a leftover from one of the many post-derecho free tree giveaways. I figured I could easily work another serviceberry tree in!

Normally understory and edge trees/shrubs, they have a beautiful open and airy growth pattern when pruned into trees. Here's our biggest one, along the west side of the house. 

You might be able to see the wren house hanging in the tree!

Here are some of the reasons I love serviceberry trees:

They are a native plant. Around here, we grow Amelanchier Arborea, the Downy Serviceberry, which is native to this area. In the wild, it forms a tall, multi-stemmed shrub, but it can be pruned into a one-stem tree. Various other species of serviceberries grow wild across the US, mostly in the north. They grow at the edges of woods, or as an understory tree/shrub. They don't need rich soil, and they do fine in sun or part shade. I like how they are not fussy. 

They bloom early. Small, white blossoms appear on the serviceberry tree really early. The flowers don't last long, and they're not particularly showy, but there are always a lot of them! 

When the petals fall off, they look like confetti

The berries attract lots of birds. Because they bloom early, they also fruit early, forming beautiful clusters on the trees that attract many birds at a time of year when there isn't much else in the way of fruit available to eat.

Almost all the berries are gone from our tree, but our neighbor's tree still has plenty!

Here's a list of the birds I've seen eating the fruits:

• Robins
• Catbirds
• Starlings
• House sparrows
• House finches
• Cedar Waxwings

I saw the Cedar Waxwings doing their courtship dance with the serviceberries this spring. This is how the dance went: they were sitting side by side on a branch, and one would pass the berry to the other. That bird would hop away on the branch, then hop back and pass the berry back. Then the first bird would hop away, hop back and pass the berry. This went on for several turns, just like in this video!

Although their house is in our serviceberry tree, wrens don't eat serviceberries; wrens are insect-eaters. Avian visitors to the tree don't bother the wrens too much, but when squirrels climb the trees to get berries (squirrels love them too!), the wrens scold and dive-bomb: "Stay away from our nest!"

The fruits are delicious. People can eat serviceberries, too! They are one of the first fruits that can be foraged in the spring. Lucky me, I can forage them in our yard! They can be picked as soon as they start to turn reddish-purple, but if you wait until they're deep blueish purple, they're super sweet. But if you wait too long, the birds will get them all!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I usually make serviceberry muffins from them every year. (It's a blueberry muffin recipe; I swap in serviceberries.) And they are amazing on yogurt. 

Serviceberries and local strawberries on my yogurt

The berries have a few tiny seeds in them that give them a delicious texture. Chew those seeds well; they give the berries a slight almond flavor. 

Beautiful color in the fall. The serviceberry's elegant oval leaves turn bright orange in the fall, adding a pop of color to our yard--and anywhere they grow. Even when the leaves fall, the trees have handsome gray bark to add a bit of texture and color to the winter landscape.

They are tough trees. I found out the hard way that deer will eat serviceberry bark in winter: they peeled a long strip of bark off the front yard tree last winter before I got it protected with a fence. The alley tree has a bark injury, too: we think the paper delivery person ran into it with their car! 

But both trees are still doing fine. They seem to have created scar tissue over the injuries, and they carry on. You have to love that in a tree.

I hear that Robin Wall Kimmerer has a book coming out in November called The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. I look forward to reading it and finding out why she loves them!