.......In cutting form. I am willing to travel to retrieve a cutting. I live in Falkland B.c. Canada and have not been able to find any local stores that grow them. I Have a nice array of seeds for trade (Too many kinds to mention)
My great uncle has many huckleberry bushes. I'm sure he'd let you have all you want. Of course, he is in north Louisiana.
Thanks so much, but I am in Canada and have to limit my travel a little lol. My husband wouldn't understand ha ha. But Thank You I wish I was closer.
Vancouver Island is a great place to find huckleberry bushes. Two wild bushes that have been growing in my garden produced enough berries for two jars of jam. The jam is the most beautiful colour of red and the taste is fabulous. We live between Qualicum Beach and Courtenay. The woods are full of them. Apparently huckleberry has never been hybridized and is not considered suitable for farming at this time according to a local garden centre. This is probably why it is not generally available. They appear to grow fairly slowly. Older plants can get woody. They grow well in the shade of cedars and other trees. I find them to be a very pretty small leaf shrub. The evergreen huckleberry grow on Denman and Hornby Islands from what I understand. I am now looking for large plants here. Many of the forest have been clear cut in this area so much of the understory vegetation is left in the open. I have selected several plants from these sites and transplanted them to my garden. By the way, where is Falkland BC?
In the okanagan, Not known for its huckles. I am from revelstoke and remember going huckle picking as a kid and I think I can get them to grow in my yard here if I could find them, Thank you for the tip
I'm on Gabriola Island and have an abundance of huckleberries here, in fact, I call my property Huckleberry Cottage. There are both the deciduous and the evergreen huckleberry. I haven't actually used the berries, but get great pleasure from watching the birds enjoy them. April
Do try huckleberry jam. It is fabulous jam. They are slow growing, require moisture but good drainage, and shade. They have been growing in my garden for years but this is the first year I actually harvested enough to make jam from two large plants (two 8 oz jars). These are wild plants that came up in the garden and were allowed to grow. We have acquired more plants from roadside areas. They are not available from garden centers. Apparently they are not considered a garden plant and have never been hybridized to improve the amount of fruit produced according to several garden centre reps. Plants we have collected are usually small (two to eight inches) roadside plants. These plants are bulldozed every four or five years as they reclaim the road from potholes and forest regrowth and most are destroyed during the process. It will be interesting to see just how productive these plants will be and how long it will take to reach the productive stage. There has been very little information on growing this native plant.
And both the evergreen and deciduous are just lovely. So okay! I'll try huckleberry jam next year. Thank you for the nudge! April
Just a few words of warning: planting huckleberries (actually wild blueberries, since true huckleberries are strictly an eastern plant) may not result in much berry production. It probably depends on the variety planted. I transplanted some huckleberries from the upper Lillooet River area to my Burnaby garden a few years ago. The wild plants had good crops of tasty, large berries; but the plants in my garden barely survived and produced practically no fruit. They were planted adjacent to commercial blueberries that were producing normal crops. This variety didn't work out, but it was still an interesting experiment.
We have the Red Huckleberries growing on our property and they make wonderful huckleberry pie. Takes alot of berries. Actually the Huckleberry found here growing natively is ' Vaccinium parvifolium' and falls into the same genus as the other huckleberries being blue. Never have tried transplanting one. We have some growing out of old stumps and they look amazing.
Greetings, I am new to this forum, but have been reading some very interesting posts on huckleberries and huckleberry plants. My husband, Malcolm, and myself are editors and coordinators of the International Wild Huckleberry Association. Would love to share and network with this group! Sandy Dell International Wild Huckleberry Association www.WildHuckleberry.com
Hi Sandy, What fun to have such an association! I was interested to see all the different species you show on your website. Here on the coast of BC, there is lots of Vaccinium ovatum (evergreen huckleberry). I don't get much fruit on that which grows on my property and I leave it for the birds. It is so attractive! April Huckleberry Cottage
Great site Wildhuckleberry, Having the greatest pleasure of picking and gorging on wild huckleberries in the West Kootenays,. I know the great value of both the jams and pies... Castlegar is home to the best pickings, from Trail, BC to Nakusp and beyond.... transplanting them is another matter! Good luck! Oh, and do watch out for bears during the harvest season!!!!
Thanks for all you knowledge about huckleberries. We have put in a garden and left two huckleberry bushes, one of them is huge, (at least 8 feet tall). I want to help them to get the most fruit possible. Thanks for all the tips. I think I'll mulch with the bark chips. Do you think I should put compost on as well? thanks
Sleepdeficit2 you are very lucky to have such a huge bush in your yard. You must have a very shady yard to have such a nice plant. I have three bushes in the yard that came up naturally -- all in fairly deep shade and somewhat productive. We transplanted several large plants from the woods in 2009. They had quite a setback and have so far produced no berries. When we built our chicken coop last year (I'm big on backyard chickens!) their area encircled the transplanted bushes. The bushes look very good this year with much more follage. I think that maintaining moisture with bark chips is a good idea. Since these are native plants I would go easy on the compost. They seem to be fairly fussy plants. Ours grow under a cedar tree so I doubt that there is much left in the soil. With the hens however, they will have to adjust to the additional richness produced by the birds. Good Luck!
Thanks for the reply. The area was very shady, until we cut down some trees about 5 years ago. It seems to do well in the sun, but I do have a soaker hose running by it. I'll cross my fingers that it continues to do well. cheers.
I have bought a small huckleberry plant from New West Horticulture Plant Sale; I planted it in a 3 gal pot and it is not growing much and I like to have the two types of huckleberry plants. I like to exchange plants, just e-mail me (Vancouver)
This is quite an old thread but my does anyone know where I can get red huckleberry bushes? And or berries? I’m in Langley BC. My lady and I enjoy them, and she said she would only marry me if I made her a huckleberry pie for her. If baking wasn’t already an impossible feat for me, I have to somehow find huckleberries, a recipe
What motivation! Many garden centres will order in special-request plants but one in your area that carries them is NATS Nursery: NATS Nursery Ltd. - Native Plants . You could search their website or go directly to Vaccinium parviolium: Plant Search « NATS Nursery Ltd. - Native Plants
at the rate of growth of the red huckleberry - one that's productive - plus the time to pick them - i'd instead cultivate (yes, pun) your rural old-stump neighbors with your spousal agreement story! (if i lived nearby i'd pick a few just to be part of this nice tale)
If looking to purchase, I'm pretty sure I recall seeing a roadside stand near Yahk (though, also see this article: Wild huckleberry pickers stripping B.C. of bounty bears need, warn environmentalists | CBC News ) Do note that the definition of huckleberries, at least as it pertains to huckleberry pie, doesn't necessarily need to include just red huckleberries. Apparently some of the high-elevation blueberries are also acceptable as "huckleberries".
(edit to add) - Yes I agree with Daniel about humans foraging - and not leaving enough for the wildlife ... or the health of the plant itself. Someone asked if they could pick our wild Oregon Grape berries - and I declined as I don't want people using up all the winter food (the berries dry on the plant) for birds, et al. BTW - Not far from Yahk, down in Montana, "huckleberry" commonly refers to the purple (blue) berry it's common to see tourist signs etc advertising all kinds of huckleberry products slightly off topic - one of my fav illustrated books is "Blueberries for Sal" - a Caldecott winner in the late 1940's Blueberries for Sal - Wikipedia ============== back to Montana blue huckleberries - the Latin name is in this article - link below Gov't of Montana magazine article - link title
Jay Green - the poster who needed (still needs?) to bake a huckleberry pie ... did you see the recent new post by Joe Crowe about growing huckleberry plants ? Note that Joe Crowe is speaking of the dark color berries .
They need to be the red huckleberries. I have found a person who sells them in the fall, Nate nursery does seem to have them listed as a product but I couldn’t seem to find out where they supply them to for public purchase.
