Wonderful Wintergreen
This winter, lean in and take a closer look at nature in your yard and the natural areas around you. One of the small delights you may find beneath the snow is wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), a charming little evergreen sub-shrub that can brighten up your yard in fall or delight you in winter when there’s less colour in the landscape.
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Photo credit: Leo Papandreou
Growing 5-15 centimetres tall, wintergreen makes a distinctive groundcover with glossy green leaves that become tinted with tones of burgundy and bronze as cooler temperatures set in. Scarlet red berries appear in fall and look like little fairy lanterns dangling over dustings of early snow.
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The myth and magic of the holiday season may lead you to believe that fairies and small folk must love these small plants for their minty taste and scent. It’s no surprise these shrubs have been used to flavour teas, candies, and gum, likely giving wintergreen its other well-known name of eastern teaberry. While rabbits usually avoid wintergreen because of its fragrance, chipmunks and white-tailed deer are not daunted by the strong-tasting leaves and edible berries. Birds such as wrens, swallows, ovenbirds and ruffed grouse will also eat the fruit.
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Photo credit: BlueRidgeKitties (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Wintergreen is easy to grow in your yard provided it's in the right location. Plant in spring, choosing an area that's in part or full shade with slightly acidic sand-loam soils (pH 4.5 to 6.5). You can buy soil testing kits at most nurseries or garden centres. If your soil is too alkaline you can try to increase its acidity by adding compost regularly.
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Plant several plants 10-15 centimetres apart and water until established. Watch for small, white to pale pink bell-shaped flowers in June. The nectar of these delicate flowers attracts pollinators such as bumblebees and cuckoo bees.
Over time, the creeping roots will form mats of glossy leaves. Older plants can be divided and transplanted in spring to fill in gaps or expand their coverage more quickly. This low-maintenance groundcover does not require pruning, except to remove occasional dieback.
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If you don’t already grow this winter wonder, use the winter to plan your spring plantings. Wintergreen grows well with similar groundcovers that also love acidic soils such as partridge-berry or bunchberry. You can also plant it below shrubs such as black chokeberry, highbush cranberry, or winterberry, or below trees such as white or red pine, red maple or paper birch.
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After the plant is established, bring in sprigs of fall wintergreen and place them in water in a vase. The bright berries and colourful leaves will light up your table for up to two months without fading.
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Winterberry is just one of several evergreen plants you might find on a winter hike in the Credit River Watershed. Look closely for partridge-berry, Christmas fern, or marginal wood fern, which also keep some colour through the winter months. Low-growing shrubs such as creeping juniper may also hide beneath the snow and peek out during thaws.
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Not sure what you found? Use one of these great plant identification apps to discover what’s growing in your neighbourhood.
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Seek identifies what you've found by comparing your photos with millions of observations in the iNaturalist database. Apart from native species, the app will also identify invasive species such as garlic mustard, goutweed, periwinkle and Japanese knotweed helping you prevent their spread in your garden and neighbourhood.
iNaturalist helps you dive deeper into the natural world around you with its extensive database of observations and species. Add photos of your sightings to its database and other users will help you confirm what you've found. You can use the app to identify insects, mammals and birds too.
PlantNet is a dedicated plant identification app that relies on images shared by users to identify plants you've found. You can also browse its vast directory of plants by family, genus or species.
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Enjoy winter in your yard and beyond. See you next year!
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