diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/analysis/TypeCoercion.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/analysis/TypeCoercion.scala
index 2f306f58b7b8..1c4be547739d 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/analysis/TypeCoercion.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/analysis/TypeCoercion.scala
@@ -324,9 +324,11 @@ object TypeCoercion {
       // Skip nodes who's children have not been resolved yet.
       case e if !e.childrenResolved => e
 
-      case a @ BinaryArithmetic(left @ StringType(), right) =>
+      case a @ BinaryArithmetic(left @ StringType(), right)
+        if right.dataType != CalendarIntervalType =>
         a.makeCopy(Array(Cast(left, DoubleType), right))
-      case a @ BinaryArithmetic(left, right @ StringType()) =>
+      case a @ BinaryArithmetic(left, right @ StringType())
+        if left.dataType != CalendarIntervalType =>
         a.makeCopy(Array(left, Cast(right, DoubleType)))
 
       // For equality between string and timestamp we cast the string to a timestamp
diff --git a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SQLQuerySuite.scala b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SQLQuerySuite.scala
index 5e077285ade5..1972dec7b86c 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SQLQuerySuite.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SQLQuerySuite.scala
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ package org.apache.spark.sql
 import java.io.File
 import java.math.MathContext
 import java.net.{MalformedURLException, URL}
-import java.sql.Timestamp
+import java.sql.{Date, Timestamp}
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean
 
 import org.apache.spark.{AccumulatorSuite, SparkException}
@@ -2760,6 +2760,17 @@ class SQLQuerySuite extends QueryTest with SharedSQLContext {
     }
   }
 
+  test("SPARK-22894: DateTimeOperations should accept SQL like string type") {
+    val date = "2017-12-24"
+    val str = sql(s"SELECT CAST('$date' as STRING) + interval 2 months 2 seconds")
+    val dt = sql(s"SELECT CAST('$date' as DATE) + interval 2 months 2 seconds")
+    val ts = sql(s"SELECT CAST('$date' as TIMESTAMP) + interval 2 months 2 seconds")
+
+    checkAnswer(str, Row("2018-02-24 00:00:02") :: Nil)
+    checkAnswer(dt, Row(Date.valueOf("2018-02-24")) :: Nil)
+    checkAnswer(ts, Row(Timestamp.valueOf("2018-02-24 00:00:02")) :: Nil)
+  }
+
   // Only New OrcFileFormat supports this
   Seq(classOf[org.apache.spark.sql.execution.datasources.orc.OrcFileFormat].getCanonicalName,
       "parquet").foreach { format =>