The Hardy Che Fruit Tree - Fig Taste for the Northern Gardener

When I moved from my house in Portland, in USDA Zone 7, to my new home on other side of the Cascade Range in USDA 5 (or 6, depending on who you ask), I was not able to bring my fig tree with me. It is the only plant I actually miss, because the fast growth was so remarkable, and the beautiful leaves, much loved by medieval religious painters for covering Adam's privates, were beautiful against my cedar fence. It may be possible to keep a small fig alive if it's grown in a pot and moved inside during the winter, but I'm a lazy gardener and that just sounds like too much work.

A plant that may act as a substitute for at least some of the properties of the fig I left behind is the Che tree, Cudrania tricuspidata. This plant is rarely found in US gardens, and the information available about it from various sources is contradictory. However, most people who write about the plant say the fruits, which looks like large red mulberries, has the texture and taste of ripe figs (sort of). The Che is related to both these plants, so the resemblance is not surprising.

Lee Reich, the author of Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden claims this small tree will begin to fruit heavily the year after planting, if grown from grafted stock, and that it is hardy down to Zone 5, but will also grow well in subtropical regions. EdibleLandscaping.com, which sells a seedless variety grafted on Osage orange rootstock, suggests the plant will grow in USDA Zones 6-9. The only way for me to know if it will grow in my Zone 5 garden is to try it and see.

The leaves of the Che are said to be somewhat lobed when immature, but look like the more common pointed mulberry or Osage orange leaves on the mature plant. This is unfortunate, in my opinion, because the leaves of my fig tree were it's most outstanding feature.

There is just as much confusion about the taste of the fruit as there is about the hardiness of the Che tree. Some say the berries taste like mild watermelon, which doesn't sound very exciting. Lee Reich says they taste like "fresh fig plus mulberry, although neither as rich as the fig nor as sweet as the mulberry." An online forum member says that they are "like a raspberry-rice-krispy treat. Very crunchy because of the seeds. They can seem insipid, because that are all sugar and no acid. Virtually everyone who tries them loves the flavor." Perhaps the fruits could be made into a "fig" preserve, with a bit of a more acid fruit added to give it a bit more zing.

I'll give two of these trees a try (they are said to need two trees for good fruit set), but keep them pruned to keep them in bounds. A full-sized female tree is said to be capable of producing hundreds of pounds of fruit, and the fruit ripens in batches, like mulberries. They do not drop to the ground for easy picking, but must be plucked from the tree by hand, a difficult job if the thorny tree is allowed to grow to its full 25-foot high potential. A negative factor, in my opinion, is that birds are not attracted to the fruit. Since squirrels are said to love the seeds in the fruit of the Osage orange, I'm hoping my neighborhood squirrels will help me harvest my Che trees.

The trees are said to sucker and become invasive if grown on their own roots. This was a positive trait when the sharply thorned trees were used for windbreaks and hedgerows, but would be a definite disadvantage in my small garden. Trees grafted on Osage orange will not sucker, so grafted trees are the only option for my experiment in growing this relative of the fig in my northern garden. Unfortunately, the online nurseries that I found selling both male and female trees do not mention if the trees are grafted or not. Both hiddenspringsnursery.com and onegreenworld.com carry Che trees and will accept internet orders. A call to the nursery will be necessary before ordering to make sure they're grafted.

Although the contradictory information I've found for this little tree has convinced me that it won't be a completely satisfactory substitute for my old fig tree, it does look like a species that could be interesting to experiment with. I like the idea of a heavily-bearing fruit tree with almost no known pests or diseases, and which is willing to live without much added fertilizer or care. If it turns out that the fruit is not as impressive as Mr. Reich and other proponents claim, I can always pull it out.