Northern Snowberry

Size, growth and what to expect

Northern snowberry grows at a medium pace for its size, 6 inches to a foot a year in our growth estimator. It makes a stiff, upright shrub 1 to 5 feet tall that forms dense, low thickets. New shoots from its underground stems can reach full height in their first year and sometimes fruit. Older bark turns gray and shreddy.

Dense clusters of small pink to nearly white, bell-shaped flowers open from June into August, and native bees visit them. Dull greenish-white berries a quarter to a third of an inch across ripen from August into October. Many hang on into winter, turning brown and crusty, and sharp-tailed grouse feed on them in fall and early winter.

It grows wild from the Northwest Territories and the Canadian prairies south through the Great Plains to Texas and New Mexico, and east to Michigan, Illinois and Missouri. Its home is prairies, open woods and thickets, dry rocky hillsides, ravines and river valleys. Planted shrubs have also gone wild farther east, in Indiana, New York and Pennsylvania.

How to grow Northern Snowberry

Northern snowberry grows best in full sun and takes part shade at a woodland edge. It takes almost any soil but loose sand, from dry, rocky gravel to heavy clay, and once rooted it rides out drought. It stands a short flood but not standing water for long. It spreads into a dense patch and can creep into a meadow, so leave a mowed strip around it. Set plants 3 feet apart and keep them 3 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Seed needs 3 to 4 months of warm, damp conditions and then 4 to 6 months of cold. Give it the warm spell at room temperature in summer and sow it outdoors in fall, a quarter inch deep, so winter supplies the cold. Some seed waits a second year to come up. Rooted suckers dug in early spring move easily too.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short, and keep grass and weeds back while it settles in. Browsing deer and elk can set young plants back, so cage them where they are many.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. Bees and other insects carry its pollen. In the wild it spreads mostly by its underground stems, and seedlings are rare. The berries are mildly poisonous, and eating them can cause vomiting and diarrhea.