Alpine Currant

Alpine Currant (Ribes alpinum) is the shrub you need when you want a super-hardy, totally dependable, tough-as-nails, doesn't care about the soil or light or air kind of shrub.

Whether you plant this as a specimen or better yet, as a hedge, Alpine Currant will work for you.

Full sun? Great! Lots of shade? Not a problem. Clay soil? Who cares? Urban street side? Doesn't matter. Heavy pruning? Bring it on!

Alpine currant is one tough cookie. It forms a thick shrub with branches all the way to ground level. In the fall, it drops its leaves without much fanfare, and in the spring it greens up again in the blink of an eye.

Alpine Currant will occasionally set small currant-like fruit, but not consistently enough to consider it an asset. And they aren't edible currants, so they taste pretty nasty to humans, but the birds go crazy for them should you get a crop.

Alpine Currant is a landscaper's standby for a carefree shrub you can count on to provide reliable green color spring through fall and is a must-have for those landscape spots where you could use something simple and dependable.