Strawberry Guava: Tree or Bush?
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Vivian
Posted on: June 19, 2000

I love visiting your garden centre. I have a strawberry guava and am wondering how tall it grows, and is it a bush or a tree? I’ve been pruning it to a bush form but it keeps shooting out a tall centre piece. Maybe I should leave it alone? It’s healthy looking.

We honestly can’t say for sure which it is. In our hands it seems to be a bush, but there is no telling from our experience whether the plant would grow taller as a tree outdoors in warmer climes. We could not find anything in our library that clarified this question.

Hortus Third says only that Psidium littorale var. longipes, the strawberry guava (also known as Cattley guava or purple guava) is a "small dense tree." A related species, P. longipes, which apparently is not the same as the strawberry guava, is an "erect shrub or small tree, to 3 ft. or more."

[Note added after the above reply was written.]
Inge Poot, Richters Horticulturist Expert, has a strawberry guava specimen plant in her home greenhouse that is now 10-12 feet high and 6-8 feet across. It is growing more as a bush than a tree.

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