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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Northern Bayberry
Myrica pensylvanica
Northern Bayberry is a nitrogen-fixing shrub whose berries carry a waxy coating, scalded off and skimmed to make aromatic candles that snuff out without smoking. The fruit and leaves double as a bay-leaf substitute in cooking, and the white berries persist through winter, feeding songbirds long after most other food is gone. It is a coastal, acid-soil plant of dunes, bogs and pine barrens that needs a cold winter and a male plant nearby to fruit, and it spreads into colonies from a shallow, plate-like root system.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–7
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate · Wet
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 4.5–6.8
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 6–8 ft
- Mature spread
- 5–10 ft
- Plant spacing
- 3–6 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
Agarita
Alloberberis trifoliolata
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American Beautyberry
Callicarpa americana
American Beautyberry is an arching deciduous shrub of rich woods, moist thickets and swamp edges across the southeastern and south-central…
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American Black Currant
Ribes americanum
American black currant is a multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native to the cooler parts of eastern and central North America, from Alberta to…
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American Elderberry
Sambucus canadensis
American Elderberry gives two harvests a year - creamy flower clusters in June for cordial, fritters and tea, and purple-black berries in…
Shrub · USDA 4–8
American Hazelnut
Corylus americana
American Hazelnut is a thicket-forming shrub that bears small, thick-shelled nuts good raw or cooked, and it pollinates itself, so a single…
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American Plum
Prunus americana
American Plum forms dense thorny thickets by suckering from its own roots, spreading itself into a hedge across most of temperate North…
Shrub · USDA 3–8
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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