Homegrown Habitat, May 2025: Chokecherry
Chokecherry is considered a keystone plant because it hosts many caterpillar species. Credit:Nadiatalent, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Homegrown Habitat author Sarah Middeleer says that despite the name, chokecherry is a plant to love. Write to her at homegrown@ctaudubon.org.
Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), a small tree with excellent garden potential, is also an ecological powerhouse. It is native to much of the United States except for a few Southeastern states.
As a member of the Prunus genus–along with stone fruits and almonds–chokecherry is considered a keystone plant because it hosts many caterpillar species. These larvae, a vital food source for baby birds, are a link in the food chain that keeps ecosystems healthy. Chokecherry is a close relative of black cherry (Prunus serotina) and pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), other native trees in this genus that are also very valuable ecologically.
Another keystone genus, Quercus, supports more than 500 species of caterpillars, and white oak (Quercus alba) is a champion in this regard. But growing oak trees, which eventually become very large, can be impractical on smaller properties. Chokecherry, on the other hand, is easy to find a place for since it typically grows to around 20 feet feet high with a similar spread. Sometimes it grows as a large shrub.
Chokecherry is no slouch in the caterpillar department, either; the Prunus genus supports more than 400 caterpillar species. Some of these lepidoptera include the coral hairstreak, eastern tiger swallowtail, and red-spotted purple butterflies; and moths such as hummingbird clearwing, crecropia, polyphemus, imperial, and io. Early pollinators mob the blooms.
The infamous Eastern tent caterpillar also sometimes uses Chokecherry to build its silky tent-like structures in the tree’s branches. While these native caterpillars often concern gardeners, a healthy tree can generally withstand a tent caterpillar outbreak. They are not the same as spongy (formerly gypsy) moth caterpillars, a highly destructive invasive insect. If need be the tents can be removed manually (never spray pesticides, which affect many nontarget insects and birds), but remember how valuable caterpillars are for feeding nestlings. Your chokecherry should refoliate in good time.
Chokecherry’s fragrant white flowers appear in May, held in elongated clusters called racemes. They are mostly self fertile, but the best fruit production occurs when more than one chokecherry are planted together. The flowers are followed by dark-purple, astringent fruit called drupes that ripen in August. Sometimes the fruit stays on the tree into the winter, its flavor growing sweeter as it ages. In summer the leaves are darker green on top and lighter green on the bottom, which is particularly pleasing to see when they flutter in the breeze. Fall foliage color is gold to orange.
Birds love to eat the astringent chokecherry fruit.
Also called Virginia bird cherry, chokecherry is a wonderful food source for birds, including waxwings, titmice, bluebirds, robins, and mockingbirds. With its lingering fruit, it can provide a critical food source for resident birds in winter. Sometimes, though, the overripe fruit will ferment, resulting in a birdie happy hour. Inebriation may literally ensue.
Despite its appeal to birds, caterpillars, and many other types of wild animals, chokecherry can adversely affect domestic animals should they eat it, because its leaves, stems, and seeds contain cyanide.
In uncultivated places chokecherry can be found in hedgerows, field edges, and forest glades. In the garden it accepts full sun to part shade and medium to dry soils. It can tolerate some salt spray and drought once it is established. Chokecherry spreads by suckering, but these shoots can be cut out from the base to limit expansion. Yet chokecherry’s value to wildlife, including nesting habitat, is enhanced by allowing it to form a colony naturally.
Use chokecherry where you can get good views of the pollinators and birds enjoying its offerings, and where you too will enjoy the scent of its spring flowers and colorful fall foliage. But remember that its fruit may stain pavement and cars. Its soft wood may split under heavy snow, so avoid planting chokecherry under eaves.
This small tree would make a good addition to a mixed hedgerow (for screening and/or bird habitat), a pollinator garden, or in the transition area between lawn and a wooded area.
Do you have an open, sunny area? Consider creating a grove of chokecherry there in combination with a few gray birches. In a wide bed, generously underplant this grouping with prairie dropseed, penstemon, and wreath goldenrod to create an attractive “soft landing” pad for the lepidoptera that will winter over beneath the trees.
Despite its puckering effect on human tastebuds when eaten fresh, chokecherry fruit has long been used to make jams, jellies, pies, sauces, and wines. Tribal people mixed the fruit with meat and fat to make pemmican and also used it for other foods and beverages. Herbalists suggest using preparations of the bark for anxiety and the heart.
Peter Klappert has written a beautiful poem about them:
“Chokecherries,” by Peter Klappert
Resources
Books
Laura Erickson, 100 Plants to Feed the Birds Turn Your Home Garden into a Healthy Bird Habitat, Storey Publishing, 2022
Randi Minetor, New England Bird Lover’s Garden Attracting Birds with Plants and Flowers, Globe Pequot, 2016
Edith A. Roberts and Elsa Rehmann, American Plants for American Gardens, The MacMillan Company, 1929, The University of Georgia Press, 1996
Jared Rosenbaum, Wild Plant Culture a Guide to Restoring Edible and Medicinal Native Plant Communities, New Society Publishers, 2023
Websites
https://homegrownnationalpark.org/keystone-plants/?_ecoregion=mixed-wood-plains
Chokecherry – Prunus virginiana | Prairie Nursery
Chokecherry, The Forgotten Fruit
