Outstanding Qualities

Creeping Oregon grape, Mahonia repens, is one of our Northwest native plants. This suckering shrub forms a tight groundcover with blue-green to deep-green spiny leaves and tight clusters of canary yellow flowers in late winter-to-early spring. The flowers can develop into dusty blue fruit, reminiscent of blueberries, but the fruit set can be inconsistent in the more northern and rainier locations of the Northwest. It is a durable and excellent choice when looking for a tough, low groundcover. It is adaptable to difficult growing situations like parking strips and parking-lot planting beds. It looks great as a creeping groundcover under deciduous shrubs and can also fill in nooks and crevices in rockeries. It works well as a contrasting, bolder-foliaged plant supplementing other low-growing groundcovers.