Serviceberry’s full bloom brings clouds to earth

Happiness makes up in height

For what it lacks in length

– Robert Frost

In the garden of my dreams, the one I will play in when I am 70 and doing only worthwhile things, it is a blue-sky April day. Almost all of winter’s last snow is gone. At the back of the garden, in front of the tall hemlocks, a bright white cloud, much like those floating overhead, has dropped near to earth. The serviceberry is in bloom. No leaves, just millions of small white flowers covering dark spreading branches.

The serviceberry of my dreams could be the downy serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea) or the Alleghany serviceberry (A. laevis), the most treelike representatives of a large genus. The downy serviceberry is named for the soft, downy gray pubescence of the emerging leaves; the unfolding leaves, just emerging from winter buds, remind subtly of pussy willow. The Alleghany serviceberry differs in subtle ways important only to the taxonomist. Native to Maine, both species grow into mature trees that can reach 25 feet or more in height.

I have heard two explanations for the common name “serviceberry.” Some say it is a corruption of the word “sarvisberry,” a reference to the berries’ faint resemblance to the fruits of the sarvis tree (European mountain ash). Others have its origin in cold winters, in places where the frozen ground would not yield to the spade and burial services had to be postponed until the spring thaw, a time marked by the flowering and fruiting of amelanchiers. A third common name, one I heard more often in the South, is “shadbush,” a reference to the flowering of the trees when shad are running in the stream.

While typically found in woodland borders in the wild, cultivated serviceberries will tolerate full sun or partial shade and will grow well in many soil types. Trees grown in full sun, however, must be watered during summer droughts to avoid early defoliation. Fireblight, a disease that leads to early defoliation and branch dieback, may also be a problem with severely drought-stressed trees and trees stressed by excessive nitrogen, such as those planted in or near lawn areas.

The cloud of white will not stay long, perhaps a week or a little longer before white petals give way to green leaves. Critics of the landscape use of serviceberries point to this short bloom period (as well as the late summer defoliation). With proper culture, however, serviceberries are not one-season trees. Their autumn leaf color is yellow-gold or orange-red and the bark, grayish and smooth but streaked with longitudinal fissures, adds structural interest to the winter landscape.

The June-ripening berries, reported to be better tasting than blueberries, are a favorite among both people and songbirds. I have known cedar waxwings to take up permanent residence in a serviceberry after it flowers, eating the rapidly developing berries as soon as they ripen and leaving little hope for the rest of us.

These two serviceberries are true aristocrats among native trees. On blue-sky days in early spring I search them out, dark trunks holding clouds near the earth for just a moment.

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