Gardening : <i> Arbutus Unedo</i> , Strawberry tree. Evergreen shrubby tree with edible fruit

Don’t be tempted to plant this tree for its fruit. The yellow-turning-to-red berries look tempting, but their bland taste is a big disappointment.

Roman naturalist Pliny, writing about AD 50, said the fruit was not worth eating, and it hasn’t improved since. Fortunately, this well-mannered, smallish tree with handsome leaves and bark and pretty yellow-white flowers has lots more than food to recommend it.

Although many people train Arbutus unedo as a tree, that eliminates one of the plant’s most appealing characteristics: its enthusiastic branching habit. If left alone, it will become a dense thicket, and several in a row will make an attractive screen.

It is the perfect size for a suburban yard, easily kept to eight feet with pruning, although it will spread up and out more than 30 feet if untrimmed.

Unlike many of its Mediterranean co-habitants, the strawberry tree will not sulk if it gets watered along with the lawn, so long as the drainage is fast and loose. Like the olive, Arbutus unedo can take plenty of drought and heat, but it should get some afternoon shade in the desert areas.

Native to southern Europe and Ireland, this evergreen is also directly related to the Pacific madrone, a tall tree that grows vigorously along most of the West Coast, and to the heathers, those low-growing rock-garden plants so beloved by the British. And to azaleas and rhododendrons, even.

All these relatives are considerably flashier than the little strawberry tree, but they are also much fussier about soil (the strawberry tree does not demand acidity) and water.