Black Chokeberry

Here, west of Philadelphia, PA, I bought a Black Chokeberry for a spot in my backyard from a native plant nursery, expecting it to grow a...Read Morebout 4 to 5 ft high as most landscape plants do. However, it kept growing taller until now it is about 14 feet high in 2018. I realized that I bought the Tall Black Chokeberry which is A. melanocarpa elata. My big, upright plant does not sucker. It is a clean, neat, handsome deciduous shrub with good orange fall color, handsome foliage and buds, and smooth gray bark. The birds, especially Robins, Catbirds, and Mockingbirds, love the black fruit that is sort of dry and tart, but edible for humans too. Various Aronia are great native plants that should be used so much more, but the vast majority of the gardening public does not know this type of plant, as they don't know very many plants at all. I still have a catalog from Lake County Nursery in Perry, Ohio, and they sold it in the late 1990's and may still do, as Hinsdale Nurseries in the Chicago area, and a few other nurseries.