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Oregon Grape Mahonia, has always been one of my favorite garden shrubs. When I was a child visiting Maymont Park in Richmond, Virginia, I loved the Grape Mahonia planted on either side of the grand marble staircase leading from the upper gardens down to the Japanese Garden. I couldn’t name it then, but loved the huge bushes full of tiny yellow flowers and deep purple berries. The huge spiky leaves looked lush and friendly, softer somehow than normal holly bushes. I wanted to grab some of the berries to play with, but of course was never allowed to touch them.
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That memory of the Mahonia stayed with me, and I was delighted to find a few old Mahonia shrubs on the border of our new garden here in Williamsburg. Often called, “Oregon Grape Holly,” Mahonia is native to the western coast of North America, from Alaska south to California. Evergreen and hardy to Zone 5, it is the state flower of Oregon.
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Native cultures along our west coast used every part of the Mahonia shrub. Its seeds are edible, although very tart. They can be converted to juice, jelly, or eaten out of hand. They also make a beautiful purple dye. The inner bark can be rendered to a yellow dye. Parts of the plant are medicinal.
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The Mahonia in my garden are already beginning to grow new leaves, and bunches of bright yellow flowers will emerge in late January and February. They are an important nectar source for bees and other nectar loving insects who come out on warm winter days in search of food. Mahonia blooms brightly when most of the landscape is dormant.
In their native northwest, Mahonia grow as an understory shrub beneath Douglas fir and pines.
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They prefer partial shade and rich, acidic soil. Drought tolerant, they thrive in a range of growing conditions from full sun to deep shade. This is a tough shrub, forming wide clumps, but staying neatly 5’-7’ high at maturity.
Birds love Mahonia berries and spread seeds far and wide. Mahonia grows so easily from seeds it is considered invasive in some areas of the Southeastern United States. Where you have a small group of Mahonia growing in moist, receptive soil, you’re likely to find a nursery of seedlings sprouting around them.
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My parents have an established clump of Mahonia near their back porch. They allowed us to dig seedlings a few years back, and all we planted survived. I gave about half of that bunch to friends and planted the rest in various parts of the garden. Some have grown more than others, depending on the soil and light. As you might guess, the seedling I planted in a large pot on the patio has grown the most and gives the best bloom each winter.
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We’ve learned that the deer ignore Mahonia. So not only do the Mahonia have lovely sharp thorns on each leaf, they certainly won’t draw deer to the garden for dinner. This is another excellent prickly shrub to use along fences and boundaries. It is dense, once established, and makes a beautiful, if shaggy, hedge.
Mahonia is also a great shrub to use as a background behind flower beds. Evergreen, it provides interest all year and makes a deep green backdrop behind warm season herbaceous flowers. It sparkles in winter and makes a beautiful vignette with evergreen ferns and ground cover in the foreground. Just when days are short and dark and rimmed with frost and snow, its tassels of bright yellow flowers will appear.
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A downside of Mahonia is its prodigious crop of seedlings. If you don’t fancy a Mahonia grove in your border you must pull them every year or so. My mother has been mentioning this for months now, and we finally made the trip in gardening togs with a supply of empty nursery pots.
Mahonia has deep roots which grow much more quickly than the stem. The Earth was loose and moist, and so I was able to dig the seedlings without too much damage to the root system. I piled them, large and small, into a few large pots. She had a few bonus American Holly seedlings mixed in and insisted we take them all.
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Mahonia doesn’t always transplant well because of its deep roots. Choose a day when the Earth is moist and the sky overcast if you plan to move some for yourself. I used a hand trowel because they were growing so close under the established shrubs. A narrow bladed spade would have allowed me to dig deeper for some of the larger plants.
After digging for nearly an hour, I decided enough was enough, and begged some fresh potting soil to cover the shrubs’ roots for the drive home. My family wryly observed that I’m happiest with my hands in the dirt and smudges of soil on my face. We helped with a little raking, sweeping, and Caladium digging while we were at it. My parents brought most of their annuals in weeks ago, but we rescued a little “left behind” cane Begonia and called it a day.
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Yesterday I sorted out the seedlings. We planted a handful of the larger ones and some with very long roots directly into the garden. Most went into 4” pots to allow their roots to recover under optimal conditions before they are planted out. The tiniest seedlings went into some deep 1 ½ ” fern pots. They will grow on for several months before we plant them.
We ended up with about 50 Mahonias, six hollies, and several bits of evergreen ground cover. My gardening friends are all invited to come over and adopt a few Mahonia if they have spots in their gardens left to brighten with a sturdy shrub.
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Neptune’s Harvest helps transplants recover from the shock. In addition to the traditional N-P-K nutrients, it’s full of minerals and helps plants get a good start. All of the Mahonia and hollies got a good watering with Neptune’s Harvest yesterday, and they’re getting watered in again today with the rain.
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Our newest Oregon grape hollies will continue to grow through winter in our climate. We won’t expect flowers for at least a year or two, but these long lived shrubs have plenty of seasons ahead to brighten winter days and offer up little purple berries to curious birds and children.
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All Photos by Woodland Gnome
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Related articles
- Oregon Grape Root: A Natural Solution for Resistant Infections and More (naturalsociety.com)
- Deer-resistant plants aren’t whole solution (sfgate.com)
- Bringing Birds to the Garden
Lovely post on a favorite plant of mine. I hate to tell you tho, that the plant you’re calling a Mahonia aquifolium is actually a M. lomarifolia or perhaps a M. media hybrid of some kind. The actual aquifolium has a much shorter leaf arrangement and they are close to the stem, not branched out like a fern as these are. The leaves are also much darker on the aquifolium. It looks quite different tho they have many similarities. I live in Seattle and have these both in my garden and the difference is striking but you can tell they’re related. Check this post: http://gardeningingreenwood.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/forage/ and you’ll see a couple shots of the aquifolium and one of a media and you can easily see the differences… Yours looks more like the media. In any event it’s a nice post about a great plant genus. Thanks for sharing it…
peace,
Steve
Dear Steven
So happy to have found your beautiful blog. The northwest is a much loved part of the country, and I guessed you were writing from somewhere in Western Washington as soon as I began looking at photos of your garden. Your post on visiting the lodge on the Olympic Peninsula was such a pleasure, and confirmed my hunch 😉 We have friends on Whidbey, and our daughter lives on the OR coast.
As I have sat here researching the Mahonias, it appears that ours may actually be M. x media “Charity.” I don’t quiet think it is the M. lomarifolia based on the photos I’ve been able to find- our flowers are never that large and showy.
These are all seedlings from shrubs in my parents’ garden, though they appear identical to the Mahonia which have naturalized in our neighborhood. There is a lot of Mahonia growing around here since it can survive the deer.
Thank you for teaching me something today- I appreciate your comments and fine tuning of my identification of the plant. It is a great genus. A friend grows a much showier variety in a large pot, but I’m quite happy with our little seedlings. We enjoy the year round interest these shrubs provide. May you walk in beauty, WG
https://forestgardenblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/oregon-grape-holly/ updated 😉
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