Photo: Forest and Kim Starr — CC BY 3.0 us · source
Survives zone 8 through 9
Blueberry sweet; lingonberry/cranberry tart (cook); bilberry intense but tiny. Care: Winter protection — mulch, fleece, or a warm wall.
- Hardiness
- Zone 8 to 9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- July–Sept
- Mature size
- Low shrub/groundcover; EXCELLENT in containers (contains the acidity)
- Light
- Partial (inferred)
- Soil pH
- 4.0–5.5 — ⚠ STRICTLY ACID-LOVING (calcifuge). Will die on alkaline soil; use ericaceous compost + rainwater
- Environment
- Montane forest
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Pollination
- Self-fertile, better with a 2nd cultivar
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Benefits from a monthly half-strength foliar feed of kelp and/or fish emulsion, plus a dilute acid-forming fertilizer (e.g. Miracid) every other month to support its strict acid-soil requirement.
How it spreads. Slow-growing and long-lived (20+ years), forming a multi-stemmed clump rather than spreading; in the wild it sometimes grows epiphytically on tree-fern trunks and fallen logs instead of colonizing open ground.
Growing tips. Rarely cultivated outside Hawaiʻi; needs consistently moist, humid conditions and is deciduous, going leafless for a few weeks between October and February. Red spider mite is the main pest reported on cultivated plants.