Cascade Oregon grape

Photo: brewbooks from near Seattle, USA — CC BY-SA 2.0 · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Sharp, tart — mostly for jelly; barberry dried as a spice.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Late summer–autumn

Mature size

Low shrub 0.3–0.7 m, occasionally to 2 m; containerable

Light

Shade (deep-forest understory)

Soil pH

5.5–7.0

Environment

Forest

Native range

Pacific North America — British Columbia south through Washington and Oregon into northern California, east to Idaho; conifer forest understorey, where it is one of the commonest ground shrubs.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

5–10 cm/year — slow, and slow to fill in as ground cover.

Spacing

90 cm (35 in) apart — about 1.2 per m² (1.1 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Evergreen, pinnate, with an unusually high count of 9–19 spine-toothed leaflets; each leaflet is fan-veined — several veins radiating from the base rather than one central midrib — which is the quickest way to tell it from the other Oregon grapes.

Root system

Shallow, strongly rhizomatous, creeping through the forest duff and throwing up new shoots to form spreading patches.

Fruit description

Oblong to round berries 8–11 mm across in erect clusters, ripening blue under a pale bloom; tart and seedy raw, good in jelly.

Propagation

Seed sown fresh without drying, given at least three months cold stratification outdoors over winter. Also increased from semi-ripe stem cuttings, or — simplest of all — by lifting rooted suckers and dividing multi-stemmed clumps.

Pollination

Self-fertile — one plant crops on its own. The stamens are touch-sensitive, snapping inward when an insect probes the nectar glands at their base and dusting the visitor with pollen; where insects are absent the anthers usually meet the stigma as the flower fades.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.