Salal

It's growing wild everywhere in my reclaimed-from-blackberries yard. What am I to do with it? Do you love it or hate it? The flowers are lovely and I hear that the birds love the berries. Not sure what to do with it all. Some of the bushes are fairly gigantic.

Personally, I love it, but I know it can get ratty looking. I don't know if it is invasive; it's never done well enough near me to be an issue. The problem here is more one of getting it started. Is it easy to pull up or not? Perhaps you can use them in a landscape/garden design. As a shrubby evergreen, is has good structural possibilities.

I would work with it if you can - great evergreen shrub, native, bird-friendly, what's not to like about it?

About Salal. http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/salal/

Yes, I agree. I will just tame it a bit; it is everywhere in my garden now that the blackberries have been pulled up.

Hi, You can prune it back whenever you want. Best after the berries are gone. It looks very nice to have them in a row along a low bank or clustered under a shade tree. They are native, evergreen and free. Just perfect.

Salal seems to be a sub-shrub- stems are woody. It grows much taller in shade, but it always seems to grow very slowly. I have pruned it severely where it is tall and scraggly (Lynnala after blackberry removal I found the underlying Salal to be tall, scraggly and ratty looking. Then it came back dense and shorter. It Does spread, but so slowly it seems easy to control.

mlm; yes, it is straggly all over the yard after the blackberries were removed. I'm going to leave it for now as a groundcover as I slowly work my way through our yard.