Any native plant garden that I maintain needs to have berries. I pretty much love all berries and I assume that wildlife loves them all, too. So, I added thimbleberries when I started the native plant garden this year. There are two pots of them and they were pretty wimpy to start with, but they have grown strong throughout their season and still have leaves on them now.

I already love the fact that creatures are eating away at the leaves of these plants–they are already part of the food web. I just hope they have enough energy leftover to keep growing and get to flowering size in the next year or two.

My future plans for these berries are to keep them watered and fed until they are fully established. Then, I hope to be able to peel off divisions frequently to keep them contained and share them with neighbors.