Every time I visit my local nursery, I like to peruse the racks of new and exciting plants they offer.  I make it a point to try one new plant and learn about it every year (sometimes I get carried away and try more than one).  Today I found the Lifeberry Goji.  I purchase goji berries in the health food store and they’re so expensive so I thought this would be something good to grow myself. 

Big Lifeberry Goji

When I got it home, I realized the Goji is more of a shrub that grows up to 10 feet high. YIKES!  Glad I checked that  out before I planted it in the garden.  The nursery had it in with the edible plants so without reading the tag, I snatched it up and placed it in my cart.

I went to the Proven Winners website and found the following information:

• Though they sound exotic and are most often found with a high price tag in health food stores, Goji berries are actually easy to grow hardy plants. If they weren’t, well, we wouldn’t have added them to the line of Proven Winners ColorChoice flowering shrubs. We’ve got two varieties of tasty, beautiful goji berries: Sweet Lifeberry® and Big Lifeberry®. These exceptional strains were specially selected in China, where goji has been grown for centuries for its purported health-giving properties and brilliant fruit color (red symbolizes joy in Chinese culture). Sweet Lifeberry and Big Lifeberry goji have been a hit in Europe and we are pleased to finally offer them to North American gardeners.
• Description: Goji is a sprawling shrub with long, flexible canes and clusters of small, grey-green leaves. The flowers are a brilliant royal purple and they appear in late spring/early summer along the length of the canes. They give way to juicy, bright red fruits that resemble small peppers. They grow sweeter as they mature on the plant. Goji plants continue to flower and produce fruit through the first heavy frost.

The website also provided a couple of neat recipes.  This little superfruit is believed to improve the health of the immune system, eyes, and liver, in addition to reducing inflmmation.  Sounds like this will be a winner……….hmmm, now to figure out where to put it.

Let me know if you’re growing a goji plant and any insight you have to share.