Huckleberries as Specimen Shrub Candy for your Eyes and Tongue
Seeking a centerpiece for your native plant garden?
Consider one of our huckleberries native to the Pacific Northwest!
Evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum) and red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) grow large, colorful, and delicious, making eye-catching specimen shrubs in all seasons. Both of these plants thrive on nurse logs in their natural forest habitats. In the garden setting, raising these beauties onto a wooden pedestal adds height and texture intrigue to your landscape.
When you lift up a shapely, brilliant, and tasty huck as your centerpiece, they will serve your eyes and taste buds for decades. Their dense foliage can cast shade, create privacy, and host small wildlife year-round. Berries can be munched raw, fermented into wine, or cooked into jams and pies.
The Burke Herbarium database describes five species of huckleberries that are native to Washington and Oregon. This article focuses on these two species that mainly occur on the west side of the Cascade Crest. We have chosen to highlight them because of their size and other characteristics that set them apart as a focal point in your landscape. This being said, all huckleberries are delectable and gorgeous: we encourage you to explore other varieties that can fulfill specific niches in your garden. Check them out on the Burke Herbarium website.
Most landscaping needs can be fulfilled by native plants instead of non-native ornamental species!
Our Subbing Native Plants into my Landscape blog series highlights ecosystem services provided by plants native to the Pacific Northwest and encourages replacing traditional landscaping species with natives.
Specimen Shrubs can be Candy for your Eyes and Tongue!
What is a Specimen Shrub?
A specimen shrub is a special feature of your garden. Typically, this centerpiece is showy once per year -- but, they can be so much more than a temporary beauty!
We promote bringing as many ecosystem services as possible to your landscape. By installing huckleberries native to our Pacific Northwest, your specimen shrub can be candy for your eyes and tongue! Not to mention providing habitat to our animal neighbors, year-round intrigue, or shade and privacy.
The Traditional Ornamental Selection: Heavenly bamboo
Despite its appearance at first glance, heavenly bamboo is not in fact a bamboo. This shrub goes by a couple other names: sacred bamboo or Nandina, which is its latin genus name.
Heavenly bamboo is native to China and was widely cultivated in Japan before being brought to Europe and the United States as a garden ornamental. It is listed as invasive in the southeastern US and has negative effects on our our Pacific Northwest ecosystems.
This plant is evergreen, retaining its leaves year-round, and bears bright red berries that also persist into the winter. These berries contain high levels of cyanide, making them poisonous to humans and wildlife alike. If many berries are consumed over a short period of time, they may even kill birds and other small critters.
What if the focal point of the garden could feed us and our animal neighbors instead of causing harm?
For a Specimen Shrub, Instead of Heavenly Bamboo, try a Huckleberry!
An Introduction to Evergreen and Red Huckleberries (Vaccinium ovatum & V. parvifolium)
In the right conditions evergreen and red huckleberries will flourish, growing over the stately height of 12 feet tall. These huckleberries are kind of particular about their environment, preferring well draining, slightly acidic substrate and specific amounts of sun. Both of these plants commonly grow on nurse logs within our Pacific Northwest forests. While propagating these beauties, we ensure to mix decomposing cedar wood with the soil. This increases the drainage, acidity, and moisture retention capabilities of the substrate. While both of these delicacies are delicious, they fulfill different environmental and aesthetic niches.
Distribution
Evergreen and red huckleberries are native from British Columbia to central California, west of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. Red huckleberries reach north into Southeast Alaska, while evergreen hucks dip into southern California at higher elevations. If you are east of the mountains but still at higher elevation, there are different huckleberries that we encourage you to explore! Check them out on the Burke Herbarium website.
Evergreen Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)
True to their name, evergreen huckleberries retain their leaves through the fall and winter seasons. During these periods, they often adopt a stunning red/purple cast. They will also take on this coloration if exposed to a lot of summer sun. Evergreen huckleberries can tolerate more sunshine than their red relatives. These babies love coastal ecosystems and handle wind and solar exposure well. The evergreen hucks are a bit easier to transplant and have been propagated from cuttings with limited success. Their berries are dark purple to black and sweet!
Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium)
Red huckleberries take a bit more time and care to establish but are certainly worth doting upon. Inhabitants of the deep woods, red huckleberries are less sun tolerant, especially when they are young or freshly transplanted. Red hucks are deciduous, but their winter form is one of their most winning features! Bright lime green twigs are distinctly square and wiggly. Their buds are small and hot hot pink. The funky aesthetic brings me back to Lisa Frank notebooks from the early two-thousands. Berries are salmon pink to bright red and more tart than their evergreen counterparts.
Eye Candy
Whether you’re seeking a plant that is robust year-round or seasonal diversity, our hucks can fulfill your desires.
The leaves of evergreen huckleberry are leathery and shiny gems. Adopting a deep emerald in the spring and summer, then ruby tones in the autumn and winter, they offer rich color all year. Young stems are bright red and mature park turns brown with a shredy texture. Berries are small and lustrous, deep purple to black in coloration. Evergreen huckleberries grow as wide as they do tall. Mature individuals can reach over 12 feet. Their hight, width, and thick foliage allow these hucks to cast ample shade or serve as part of a hedgerow.
Red huckleberry takes a more delicate form than evergreen huckleberry. Berries are smaller and vibrant pink/red. Leaves are soft in texture and bright spring green. Once they drop in the autumn, wiry twigs are revealed, displaying whimsical form as they twist their way towards the sky. Buds are brilliant pink spots winding along the twig’s surface. Their winter palette mirrors summer verve.
Tongue Candy
Huckleberries are one of our favorite summer treats! They can be enjoyed fresh in ethical foraging grounds, smashed in a margarita, or baked into a garden tart. We humans are not the only ones who enjoy huckleberries: they are also a delicacy to deer, elk, birds, and small mammals. On the other hand, the texture of evergreen huckleberry leaves deters deer and both species regrow readily from browse.
From our Species Descriptions
For a breakdown of terms used in this plant description, visit our Terms Definition page, here.
Vaccinium ovatum, Evergreen huckleberry
Exposure: Partial shade to shade
Soil moisture: Moist to dry
Salinity tolerance: None
Fire tolerance: Medium
Transplanting success: Medium
Growth rate: Slow until established
Form: Evergreen shrub to 12 feet; fibrous, shallow root system
Like other natives in the heath family, Evergreen huckleberry can be difficult to establish, although it may be the easiest of the lot! Success is higher with shaded plantings, but with rich soil or an organic mulch and sufficient moisture, sun plantings can work. Evergreen huckleberry seems to grow most gloriously on well-drained marine bluffs and shorelines. Click here for more photographs of this species on the University of Washington Herbarium website.
Vaccinium parvifolium, Red huckleberry
Exposure: Shade to deep shade
Soil moisture: Moist to dry
Salinity tolerance: None
Fire tolerance: High
Transplanting success: Low to medium
Growth rate: Slow until established
Form: Deciduous shrub to 12 feet; deep and spreading, woody roots
Typically, red huckleberry favors rotting wood as a substrate, a difficult preference to satisfy at a restoration site. Certainly, if there is rotten wood available, plant directly into it or break it up and mix it into the soil. Otherwise, provide an organic mulch such as wood chips. This species is shade dependent, do not plant it in the full sun, as it will shrivel and die. Click here for more photographs of this species on the University of Washington Herbarium website.
If you have a specimen shrub of heavenly bamboo or another species not native to our Pacific Northwest ecoregion, consider substituting it for a huck. After the switch, you'll enjoy an abundance of ecosystem services and support your environment -- great work!
Sources
Heavenly Bamboo
www.landscapeplants.oregonstate.edu/plants/nandina-domestica
Pacific Northwest Hucks General
www.soundnativeplants.com/nursery/species-selection-guide/
www.burkeherbarium.org/imagecollection/results.php?Terms=vaccinium&x=0&y=0&Type=Names
Evergreen Huckleberry
Sound Native Plants' Information Sheet archives
www.soundnativeplants.com/nursery/species-descriptions/trees-and-shrubs/#Vaccinium_ovatum
www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/shrub/vacova/all.html
www.plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/cs_vaov2.pdf
www.plants.usda.gov/plant-profile/VAOV2/characteristics
Red Huckleberry
www.soundnativeplants.com/nursery/species-descriptions/trees-and-shrubs/#Vaccinium_parvifolium
www.plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/cs_vapa.pdf
I’m restoring a steep ravine on back of house property and found remnants of cedar trees. Would huckleberry like this environment of steep slope with crumbs of cedar mixed into the soil?
I live in Kirkland. Do you deliver? I probably need at least ten or more.
Hi Denise! Thanks for your comment. We need some more information about your ravine before we can advise planting huckleberries. I have sent you an email to follow up on this. Looking forward to your reply!