I grew up calling this plant kinnickkinnick, which is one common name. It urns out kinnick kinnick is also a smoking blend used by indigenous people. I prefer the native groundcover plant. For the native garden I added one of these plants. I wasn’t sure how it would fare in a very exposed site, but it did well. In fact, kinnickkinnick seems to do well in a lot of places and it does get planted possibly more than any other native plant in commercial and public spaces.

The plant is an evergreen shrublet, with bell-shaped pinkish-white flowers and orange-red berries where conditions are right. This plant grows wild in the Tonasket area around our cabin. I rarely see berries there, though, despite prolific blooming. I suspect the berries get eaten before I can glimpse them.

I don’t have any photos of my new plant, but the above shows how well these shrubs can cover the ground near our cabin. My future plans for the plant are to makes sure it has room to spread and propagate it when possible to spread around the garden and share.