Growing a Bunchberry

Choose your planting site. It should be fully or mostly shaded, have rich, well-drained, acidic soil. Bunchberry is often found growing wild near rotting deadfall. The deadfall introduces beneficial organic matter into the soil, and imitating these conditions in your planting site helps in the cultivation of the plant.

Gather, wash and mash ripe red seeds from native bunchberry and soak in water for 24 hours. Seeds are best gathered in late summer.

Separate the seeds out of the soaked berry pulp and mix with a 3:1 mixture of peat and vermiculite respectively. Place mixture in a thin, loosely closed plastic bag and allow to rest in a warm place for 45 days.

Turn the plastic bag often to provide the seeds with oxygen.

Refrigerate seeds for an additional 140 days to stratify them and fulfill their natural winter dormancy period. Keep turning the bag, and keep the peat mix moist throughout this time.

Transfer the seeds into trays filled with the same peat mixture and plant at a depth of 1/4 in. Keep moist and warm.

Move seedlings into flats of potting mix and keep in a hothouse or greenhouse for at least eight weeks. Finally, transplant to your selected planting site.

Plant the bunchberry upright, in a hole slightly larger than the root ball, under a deciduous or coniferous tree that will keep it mostly or entirely shaded throughout the hot part of the year. The pine needles of conifers raise soil acidity, in which bunchberries seem to thrive. In cooler climates, be prepared to winter bunchberry the first year in a shaded cold frame, built around the plant.

Keep the young plant moist with frequent watering through dry spells.