Goji Berry
Lycium barbarum
also called wolfberry
Trained along wires it fruits generously; left to itself it suckers into a thicket.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Solanaceae (nightshade family)
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Full sun — fruiting falls away in anything less.
- Watering
- Water it into the ground, then irrigate through the fruiting season.
- Feeding
- A balanced feed in spring and a compost mulch.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- July
- Pruning
- Spur-prune in late winter, and keep the suckers in check.
- Mar–Jul Bud Break
- Jul–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Aug Fruit Set
- Aug–Nov Harvest
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 4 ft 5 in
- In-row spacing
- 4 ft 5 in
- Between rows
- 6 ft 11 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 7.5–10 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
It suckers from the roots and seeds itself, so a goji is best given a spot it can spread into or a large container. Left in a mixed border it comes up several metres away.
The habit is Goji Berry’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Generally trouble-free No notable pest or disease problems when grown in the right conditions — one of the easy ones.
Comfrey, Marigolds, Borage
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com