PlantSowGrow
How to plant and care for Sea Buckthorn
Hippophae rhamnoides
🍓 Fruit
🔁 Perennial
A thorny, silver-leaved shrub that thrives on poor, dry, windy sites. Females carry masses of sharp orange berries packed with vitamin C.
At a glance: harvest in September.
When to plant and care for it
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Harvest
Prune
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Sea Buckthorn: what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Drought-tolerant once established
- Soil
- Poor, sandy, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 2 m
- Height
- 3 m
- In pots
- Best in the ground
- Feeding
- No feeding needed
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–7
Step by step
- On planting day
Plant
Plant 2 m apart in weed-free, well-prepared soil enriched with compost, and water in well.
- 0–3 days after “Plant”
Water In
Water well and keep moist while it settles in.
- 7–21 days after “Water In”
Mulch
Spread 5 cm of compost or bark around the plants to keep moisture in and weeds down.
Every year
- MarchPrune
Cutting off fruited twigs at harvest is pruning enough; remove suckers you do not want.
- SeptemberHarvest the Berries
Cut off whole berry-laden twigs (wear gloves), freeze them and knock the berries off. Use for juice and jam.
Starts from year 3.
