Photo: Gordon Leppig & Andrea J. Pickart — Public domain · source
Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
An evergreen Pacific Coast huckleberry grown as much for its glossy, long-lasting foliage — a major commercial cut-greenery crop for the floral trade — as for its tart, dark purple-black fruit.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- July–Sept
- Mature size
- Evergreen shrub 1–2.5 m, occasionally taller in shade; takes shearing, and the cut foliage is sold by florists
- Light
- Partial to shade (forest understory)
- Soil pH
- 4.5–6.5 — a somewhat wider range than most of the genus
- Environment
- Coastal
- Native range
- Pacific coast from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to California, common along the coastal redwood belt.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Slow under normal garden conditions, though it resprouts vigorously from the root crown after fire or top damage.
- Spacing
- 76 cm (30 in) apart — about 1.7 per m² (1.6 per 10 sq ft)
- Leaf shape
- Ovate to oblong-lanceolate, thick and leathery, glossy dark green above and paler below, finely serrated margins; evergreen.
- Root system
- Not rhizomatous — a taproot-dominated system with a well-developed root crown that resprouts readily after top damage.
- Fruit description
- Small, shiny purplish-black berries (6–10 mm) in dense clusters, generally without a bloom; sweet but somewhat mealy flesh with a fairly strong, musky flavor.
- Propagation
- Semi-ripe cuttings in mid-to-late summer, or layering in summer, are the standard nursery methods; seed needs no special pretreatment but is slow, taking 2–3 years to reach a saleable size.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile, better with a 2nd cultivar
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.
Growing guide
Growing tips. Slow-growing broadleaf evergreen — 3–5 ft (occasionally 8 ft) in sun but can reach 12+ ft in shade, since light availability strongly affects mature size. Its glossy foliage is a major commercial cut-greenery crop in the US floral trade ("huck" or huckleberry greens, sold in bunches with roughly an 8-day vase life) — arguably its dominant economic use today, alongside the fruit. Watch for Phytophthora ramorum (sudden oak death), which causes ramorum leaf blight and dieback where it overlaps with affected Pacific Northwest forests.
Grow journal
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