Pomegranate
Punica granatum
Jewel-seeded Mediterranean fruit — basil and lavender keep good company.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- In-row spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- Between rows
- 9 ft 10 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
Calendar (from your frost dates)
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 180 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- at the first fall frost
Growing
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Low–moderate
- Soil
- Free-draining, moderately fertile
- Feeding
- Feed in spring, then liquid-feed every two weeks while it fruits.
- USDA zones
- 7a–11b
- Frost tolerant
- No
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Prune in late winter, thinning to an open framework.
- Overwintering
- Move containers under cover for the winter.
Through the year
- Mar–May Spring Growth
- May–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Sep Fruit Set
- Sep–Nov Harvest
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
Harvest
- When
- September–November in warm climates (US zones 8–10; in the UK a conservatory/very sheltered wall crop); fruit matures 5–7 months from flower. Trees crop in 3–4 years.
- What to look for
- Fruit stops rounding and turns slightly angular/hexagonal as arils swell against the rind; skin takes full deep color and shifts from glossy to matte-leathery; the fruit feels heavy for its size and gives a metallic, hollow tap. Ripe fruit may begin to crack open — pick before splitting. No ripening off the tree.
- How to harvest
- Always cut with secateurs close to the fruit — twisting or pulling tears the rind and the branch. Handle by the body, not the crown.
- How often
- Two or three picks over the autumn as fruits mature at different rates; harvest promptly once any fruit starts to split, and get the crop in before heavy rain (splitting) or frost.
- Storing the crop
- A genuine keeper: whole fruit lasts 1–2 months in a cool room, 2–3 months refrigerated (they resist drying better than apples). Extracted arils keep 5 days chilled or freeze well; juice freezes and reduces to molasses/grenadine.
Companions
Lavender, Thyme, Rosemary
Pests & problems
- Aphids Small sap-sucking insects — greenfly, blackfly — that cluster on soft new growth and excrete sticky honeydew. Squash by hand, hose off with water, and encourage ladybirds and lacewings.
- Whitefly Tiny white moth-like insects that rise in clouds from leaf undersides, weakening plants and leaving honeydew. Hang yellow sticky traps and encourage or introduce parasitic wasps.
- Fruit splitting Fruit cracking from irregular watering
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Dragonflies & damselflies Odonata
Aerial hunters that take mosquitoes, midges and small flies on the wing all day, and whose larvae spend a year or more clearing the same insects from the water. A pond with planted margins and no fish is the way to have them.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & Trichogramma
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Spiders Araneae
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
- Aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyzaHunts Aphids
A tiny midge whose orange maggots paralyze aphids and drink them dry, twenty or more each. Sold as a greenhouse biological control and resident outdoors wherever there are small nectar flowers and an unsprayed aphid colony to find.
- Assassin bug ReduviidaeHunts Aphids
A patient ambusher with a curved beak it drives into whatever it catches — caterpillars, beetles, bugs, and the occasional bee, so count it a generalist rather than a specialist. It will jab a careless finger too, so admire it and leave it be.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Aphids
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Aphids
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Aphids
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Praying mantis MantidaeHunts Aphids
A sit-and-wait ambusher that snatches caterpillars, beetles, and anything else that wanders close — friend and foe alike, so count it a mixed blessing. Tall, structured plantings give it perches and egg-case anchors.
- Soldier beetle CantharidaeHunts Aphids
Soft-winged beetles seen mating on flower heads in high summer; adults and larvae both take aphids and soft grubs. Open composite flowers are their landing pads and hunting grounds.
Did you know?
A single pomegranate can hold 600 or more juicy seeds, each one called an aril.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com