What it is
Sugar Hackberry (Celtis laevigata) is in the Cannabaceae (Hemp) family. The tree Texans love to hate is secretly a survival food: hackberry drupes are a crunchy natural trail mix - thin sweet skin over an edible protein-rich seed.
How to grow it
It wants full sun to part shade, water it none needed, and give it any - famously unfussy soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0-8.0. Space plants about 30 ft apart. Expect roughly Berries in fall. Hardy native.
How it's used
Sugar Hackberry is used: whole ripe berries eaten crunched, seed and all.
🔎 How to identify it
- Warty gray bark ridges on a smooth trunk
- Asymmetrical sandpapery leaves
- Pea-sized orange-to-purple berries in fall
Edibility
How to grow & propagate sugar hackberry
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate sugar hackberry
Sugar Hackberry comes up from seed and, once it's a few years old, can be lifted and divided in cool weather to make more plants and keep the clump vigorous.
Growing sugar hackberry in Texas
Give it full sun to part shade and any - famously unfussy soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Because it's a perennial, the work is mostly up front. Get it sited and established and it comes back on its own year after year — one of the best returns on effort in the whole garden.
Once it's rooted in, this is a low-water plant — overwatering does more harm than drought here. Water deeply to establish, then back off and let it prove how tough it is.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly berries in fall before you're harvesting. The part you're after: ripe orange-red to purple drupes.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.