Description
Five each of cold-hardy and damp soil loving Lingonberry or cowberry cultivar shrubs Balsgard and Red Sunset. Vaccinium vitis-idaea are native to high elevations in Massachusetts.
- Geographic Distribution: Found wild from Greenland across Alaska and Canada, extending down into high-elevation areas of New England (such as Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont), Minnesota, and the Pacific Northwest.
- Natural Habitats: Thrives in acidic bogs, fens, rocky barrens, mountain slopes, heaths, and coniferous forest understories.
- Soil Preferences: Requires strongly acidic soils (pH under 6.8) that are moist to wet, peaty, or sandy, yet well-drained.
- Plant Habit: A dwarf, creeping subshrub that spreads via underground rhizomes to form dense, low-growing ground cover mats.
- Size: Typically grows 4-2″tall and spreads 12-36″ wide.
- Foliage: Features small, leathery, glossy dark-green oval leaves that stay green year-round.
- Flowers: Produces small, nodding, bell- or urn-shaped white to pink flowers in terminal clusters during the spring.
- Fruit: Followed by small, round, bright red edible berries that have a tart, acidic flavor and ripen in mid-to-late summer or fall.
- Light and Hardiness: Prefers full sun to partial shade; exceptionally cold-hardy (thriving down to USDA Zone 2 or 5)
| Lingonberry, Balsgard | Vaccinium vitis-idaea ‘balsgard’ | 5 |
| Lingonberry, Red Sunset | Vaccinium vitis-idaea ‘red sunset’ | 5 |