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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-439
Lingonberry
Vaccinium vitis-idaea
Lingonberry is a low, evergreen, mat-forming subshrub native across the far north - from Iceland and Scandinavia through northern Asia to Japan, and into Canada and the northeastern United States. It yields small, tart berries that taste noticeably better after the first frost and get used like cranberries in preserves, sauce, juice and baking. It spreads by underground stolons into a dense evergreen groundcover, and the leaf, stem and fruit also give a yellow and a purple dye. It needs consistently moist, acid, lime-free soil and cool summers - it is a boreal-to-montane plant with no lowland hot-summer population anywhere in its range.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–7
- Soil
- Loam
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Groundcover- Soil pH
- 4.5–6
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 3–12 in
- Mature spread
- 12–36 in
- Plant spacing
- 12 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Beach Strawberry
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Bilberry
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Black Medick
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Carpet Bugle
Ajuga reptans
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Catmint
Nepeta racemosa
Catmint blooms from spring through the end of summer if the spent flower spikes are sheared after each flush, holding nectar for pollinators…
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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