K - Kinnikinick

Kinnikinick (also known as Bearberry or Uva Ursi) is a native plant here that's being promoted by designers of natural gardens. A couple of years ago when we redid our front garden I'd never heard of Kinnikinick, but several people suggested it would be a good ground cover for the area under our cedar trees.

You can see that it's quite pretty with its red berries; it also has little pinky-white flowers in the spring.  So we planted hundreds (literally) of little Kinnikinicks along the edge of the garden gravel area. 

The idea was for it to bush up and look something like this. But what we didn't know was that Kinnikinick is a very slow grower.  We're going into our third year now and the area doesn't look much different from when we planted it.

Last year there were two or three red berries to see and I've never yet seen a flower.  Maybe by next year it will have established itself and begin to grow.

Here's hoping that someday it will begin to look a little like these photos from the Washington State University.  But I'm not holding my breath!