Nanking Cherry vs Flowering Raspberry - TreeTime.ca

Nanking Cherry vs Flowering Raspberry

Prunus tomentosa

Rubus odoratus

COMING SOON

(new stock expected: fall of 2025)

NOT AVAILABLE THIS SEASON - MIGHT RETURN

Nanking Cherry
Flowering Raspberry

Nanking Cherry is a small deciduous shrub known for its attractive white blossoms and edible fruit. Its dark red berries are excellent for pies, jellies, and even fresh eating.

Nanking Cherry is highly regarded as a shade tolerant fruit. We often see it planted as a hedge on the north side of a house where few other plants will survive, let alone thrive.

Expect fruit mid to late July. The fruit can vary in sweetness and size considerably. We often hear that people prefer it to sour cherries. Perhaps this is because Nanking Cherry is more closely related to plums. In fact, it is sometimes used as a dwarfing rootstock for plums.

The Flowering Raspberry is an ornamental shrubby plant that blooms with fragrant light purple flowers throughout the summer and has a large, decorative foliage of bright green leaves. The flowers resemble that of a wildrose, and the foliage turns a bright yellow in the fall. This cultivar produces small red raspberries, similar to that of a thimbleberry, but the fruit is mostly tasteless.

The Flowering Raspberry, also known as Virginia Raspberry or Purple-Flowered Raspberry, makes a great hedge plant and is a good choice for attracting birds to your yard.

Nanking Cherry Quick Facts

Flowering Raspberry Quick Facts

Zone: 2a
Zone: 3a
Height: 2.4 m (8 ft)
Height: 1.8 m (6 ft)
Spread: 2.1 m (7 ft)
Spread: 4 m (12 ft)
Light: full sun
Light: any
Moisture: normal
Moisture: normal
Growth rate: medium
Growth rate: fast
Life span: short
Life span: medium
Suckering: low
Suckering: high


Bark: thornless orange
Flowers: white, early spring
Flowers: purple
Fruit: scarlet sweet but slightly tart cherries, 8-12 mm diameter
Berries: scarlet sweet but slightly tart cherries, 8-12 mm diameter
Berries: red to purple, seedy
Firmness: firm
Flavor: tasteless
Hybrid: no
Hybrid: no
Catkins: no
Catkins: no


Native to: ON, QC, NS
Other Names: ando cherry, chinese bush cherry, chinese dwarf cherry, downy cherry, hansens bush cherry, korean cherry, manchu cherry, mountain cherry, shanghai cherry
Other Names: purple-flowered raspberry, virginia raspberry