Punica granatum Wonderful - Pomegranate

Punica granatum Wonderful is a vigorous and early-fruiting variety of pomegranate, cultivated on a large scale in California for juice production. Its seedless pomegranates are of a good size, and they are valued for their sweet, complex flavour that is both tart and sweet. Its crumpled, bright orange flowers are also highly decorative in late spring. It is rather tender for the genus (-8 °C (17.6 °F) / -10°C (14 °F)), which requires sun and warmth to ripen its fruits. Planting can be done all year round (except during frost), but preferably in autumn. Harvesting can begin at the end of September, depending on the climate, starting from the 4th or 5th year.

The fruiting pomegranate is a small tree or large bush of the Lythraceae family, related to the purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) which is so common near watercourses. It is native to a vast region that covers the entire southeast of Europe and extends eastwards to the Himalayas. It is a species with a long lifespan, capable of living up to 200 years.

'Wonderful' first forms a clump of thorny and tangled branches with fairly rapid growth until maturity, which does not occur until the age of 5-6 years. The adult plant develops at a much slower rate, forming a small tree at least 4 m (13 ft 1 in) tall and 2.50 m (8 ft 2 in) wide, with a spreading and rounded habit, after a few years. From a clump, it becomes a tree with a trunk that has a twisted appearance, reminiscent of olive trees, if pruned.

Flowering occurs abundantly in May-June, and then more sporadically until August. The flowers are about 3-4 cm (1.2-1.6 in) long, and in diameter. They are composed of crumpled petals in a beautiful orange shade tinged with red, emerging from a thick calyx with a waxy texture that already evokes the future pomegranate. The pomegranates produced by this variety can weigh more than 700 g if the tree does not lack water at the end of summer and early autumn. Their skin is quite thick and yellow, heavily tinged with red when ripe, and encloses large, juicy, sweet-tasting red capsules, containing a few small, soft seeds that are easy to swallow. The deciduous foliage is composed of small, thick, shiny, bright green leaves which emerge bronze to purple in spring and become golden yellow before falling in autumn.

A symbol of abundance like its emblematic ancestor of ancient civilizations, the Wonderful pomegranate is a magnificent specimen to plant in a warm and isolated location. Hardy dawn to -13 / -15°C (5 °F), it will grow without any problems wherever olive trees and fig trees manage to survive. However, its superb fruits generally only ripen in the southernmost regions. It can also be used in a large Mediterranean fruit hedge, combined with Osage orange, bitter orange, a small fig tree (Dalmatia, Dorée), a Japanese medlar, etc.

The city of Granada, a crossroads of Arab and Andalusian civilizations located in southern Spain, owes its name to the presence of the pomegranate, brought by the Moors and widely planted in the mythical gardens of the Alhambra Palace. This tree also adorned the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Romans discovered it in Carthage, naming it the Apple of Carthage.