Native Plant Neighbors
Editor’s Note: Eric Worden will contribute this
“Native Plant Neighbors” column over the next year.
by Eric Worden
Your native plant neighbor evergreen huckleberry is welcomed by everyone wherever it’s found, both in nature and in the home landscape. People who are new to native plants will find this shrub very approachable, with its agreeable moderate size, shiny attractive evergreen foliage, charming spring flowers, and abundant, tasty berries. It grows happily in both sun and shade but always in well-drained soil, including sandy near-shore soil. It’s commonly found near shorelines from California to southern British Columbia, and often abundantly.
Curiously, it is rarely found in nature in Whatcom County, or in any area of the geologically historical Fraser River delta that extends from Bellingham to Vancouver, British Columbia. However, even among Whatcom County members of the Washington Native Plant Society, we don’t quibble about evergreen huckleberry’s range, and consider it a “native” plant.
photo: Kollibri1969, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
White and pink flowers in the spring.
In nature, the flowers are attractive to bumblebees and hummingbirds. The berries, which hold on the shrub into the winter, are eaten by birds, and have always been appreciated by peoples of the region. Like all huckleberries, they have a bright and delicious flavor, though thicker skin than other huckleberries. Unlike other huckleberries, these grow in clusters: pick a dozen berries with one stroke of your fingers for a fresh and juicy addition to your breakfast cereal.
Evergreen huckleberry is ideal for the garden: attractive, neat, hardy, undemanding , and having a moderate growth rate. It’s natural growth form is moderately dense and easily controlled with modest pruning. It also responds well to shearing and shaping into simple topiary shapes. You can find the pictured manicured specimen at the fire station on McKenzie Avenue in south Bellingham. You’ll find this plant available at any native plant nursery, and many conventional nurseries as well!
photo: Eric Worden, public domain
A mature, neatly trimmed specimen.
Lastly, a lingering question: what’s the difference between a blueberry and a huckleberry? These are informal names, so it’s okay that different people call the same plant one name or the other. In general though, blueberries have a fine powdery coating on the berries that gives them a blue color. Huckleberries generally lack this powdery coating, and appear shiny, and near black in color, or red. Huckleberries and blueberries have a lot in common, and, in particular, they are all delicious!
To learn more about evergreen huckleberry and other native plants, visit the Washington Native Plant Society at wnps. org.
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Eric Worden is a lifelong amateur naturalist, and the chair of the Koma Kulshan chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society.
