I've already ordered it along with lingonberry (cowberry). Should be interesting since their requirements are the opposite of most everything I'm familiar. :D

Bon, I think you must have cabin fever because those are plants that just don't do well in our climate, which is why you don't see them for sale in the local stores.

I've always wanted to grow bearberries here, but never bothered trying them here because I think that we get too hot here for them to thrive. Do some research and check their AHS Heat Zone and I bet you'll find that they likely are heat zone 6, or maybe even heat zone 5. I think OK is mostly AHS Heat Zone 8, or at least my part of OK is. My USDA Cold Hardiness zone is 7. The heat zones are not the same as the USDA cold hardiness zones. USDA Cold Hardiness Zones are based on the lowest average temperatures an area experiences. AHS Heat Zones are based on the number of days per year that the daily temperatures exceed a certain threshold, which I think is 86 degrees. The Heat Zone info is really helpful as it helps us rule out northern-type plants that cannot tolerate the kind of heat we have in an average year. So, even if bearberry plant info says they'll grow in USDA zone 7 or 8, that is really only a reference to their cold-tolerance, not to their heat tolerance. For that info you need the AHS Heat Zone info.

Additionally, I have strongly alkaline soil and alkaline water and bearberry needs mildly acidic soil and water. Finally, they prefer sand and for so many years I only gardened in clay until we built the garden out back in the sandy soil that is pine vole central. It is full sun, so I wouldn't try bearberry there either.

There's more to consider than just the heat/cold tolerance and the soil pH. With the kinds of bearberries that grow in cool, dry parts of the Pacific coastal states, they have a sort of symbiotic/mutualistic relationship with naturally occurring mycorrhizae fungi that exists in their soil, so if that's the kind of bearberry you got, it may not grow here without that fungi. Perhaps they grow it in the ground locally and pot it up before shipping. If that is the case, some of the fungi may have colonized the roots already. If you ordered the kind that are native to some northern states east of the Rocky Mountains, I don't believe they are known to have that same mycorrhizae relationship.

Instead of trying to force things to grow here that just aren't going to be happy here, I search for plants that can tolerate our weather, soils and water about 99% of the time. Every time I've tried to push the zone limits, I can keep an out-of-zone plant alive 2, 3 or 4 years and then lose it during one kind of extreme weather or another, so I finally gave up pushing those limits. About the only thing I push the limits to grow here any more is rhubarb for Tim because he likes it so much and it reminds him of his childhood. Our winter weather is not a problem for rhubarb, but our hot, dry summers are and that's how I lose the plants even if I've kept them alive for a few years. I finally have succeeded in keeping rhubarb alive for multiple years (so far) by growing it in containers I can drag up into deep shade in the summer months. I still fail to water it as often as I should, mostly because I just don't like to coddle anything, but I do water it enough to keep it alive. Maybe barely alive, but alive.

I've never researched growing lingonberry very heavily because I know it has poor tolerance for the kind of heat we have here and it also doesn't tolerate the kind of dry soils we have here. Many people who have tried lingonberry in the southeast and Atlantic coastal areas that have mentioned it here on GW over the decade that I've been a member have had poor luck with them because of the heat. If we want lingonberries, I just buy lingonberry jam when we're at Ikea. I also know people who've tried goumi and gooseberry here in OK and didn't have luck with them either. A lot of the lesser-known fruiting plants are lesser-known for a reason----because they adapt poorly to conditions outside their natural range.

Finally, remember this: when you read plant descriptions that say various plants are heat-tolerant or drought-tolerant, that terminology is being used as it applies to most of the USA that is cooler than us, but not to the really hot places like Oklahoma. Where Tim grew up, a plant is considered heat-tolerant if it doesn't burn up and die when the high temperatures hit 85 or 90 degrees, and it is considered drought-tolerant if it can go a week or two with no rain. Oh, the horror of such a thing! The same is true of descriptions of some flowering plants that says they will bloom all summer long, That can be a totally incorrect statement depending on where the plant is being grown. A flowering plant that will bloom all summer long in New Hampshire or Pennsylvania often will not bloom here at all in summer---it will be a spring bloomer here if it survives at all. I've learned all of this the hard way.

Ima give it a try in double terra cotta pots with sand insulator. Success will depend if I they can tolerate shade indoors our hottest months. I don't have much window space. I suppose I could buy a light. I need to discover their minimum cold dormancy requirements. Heck, our winters might not be sufficient. There's always the frig lol

lol. I expect it won't get enough light indoors in summer unless you have south-facing windows that let in a lot of light. Grow lights are a poor substitute for natural sunlight. I think the bearberry likely would get enough cold outdoors where you live to meet its requirements, but I'm not sure about lingonberry

There's a website somewhere that lists native plants of Oklahoma and some of our native fruiting and herbal type plants are listed there. They'd be a lot more likely to produce for you than plants that are native to the northernmost tier of the USA and to Canada. I'll find it and link it.

Oklahoma Wildcrafting

I want to grow aronia chokeberries, but the seeds have to do 3 months heat and then 4 months cold. I will put them in a pot this summer and see if I can get them to germinate next spring. I don't know if I have THAT much patience. I bought a blackberry plant last year that was the most vicious little plant I have ever experienced. I could not walk past it without it grabbing my clothes and pulling itself off the shelf. Sharpest thorns ever. I am rethinking a whole patch of those monsters. Fruit in Oklahoma is dicy. I may be old to worry about getting fruit, LOL.

Yeah, when looking at nutritional needs, I get my breeches in a wad because we just can't do fruit (in a sustainable way). I mean really GOOD fruit. As long as we're in this state, I'll probably keep trying different varieties - especially the natives - along with accompanying recipes.

Dawn, I have a long-term goal in mind. Bonsai is that goal. Two Bonsai, to be exact; one to pass on to each of my two older children. My daughter's husband is proficient in horticulture, so he'll care for them when I'm gone. I'd like to think that when I pass, they'll have these Bonsai to know how much I thought about them. I don't get to see them. Now, I've no intention of jumping into the Bonsai wagon, as of yet, but these would be a good trial. I haven't look to see if these are good candidates. Now, I'm mostly concerned about nutritional value. This one's important because I have a digestive problem that is resistant to customary medical treatment. So, I guess when things are important we do what we must.

I could pay to have someone ship me a small sample of soil from origin infused with fungi, occasionally. I find this works with my own native soil when I'm trying to beef up a poor section of dirt. The matter of soil microbe transplant becomes more apparent when you primarily work the soil by hand. I don't know if that would work for this species, but I know I'll end up doing homework and finding what does. If nothing does, nothing does. I'll build a window greenhouse on the south bedroom, if I must. The existing windows are the old wooden hung windows that cannot be opened because of the wood swelling and shrinking over time. They need to be replaced, anyway. It's great justification for the cost of replacing at least one window. ha Lots of options, really.

It's a good website. I don't recommend anyone join Jackie's group, though. Very exclusive.

Tx. I just bookmarked that. I know you've listed them before, but my mind was far from the possibilities at that time. I was thinking deeply yesterday while meditating on the garden. I thought from the beginning when it was just yard/prairie land mostly with dandelion, dock, crab grass, Bermuda, nutsedge and wild onions, chives and garlic and a whole bunch of Johnson grass. Since then everything has changed. I've studied, but most of my knowledge has come from you and others willingness to share experience on this forum. Absolutely priceless. And ya'll have repeated yourselves countless times. I suppose it's the love (obsession) for gardening. And for many, it's the drive for a better world (Mr. Coleman - case in point and you, too).

I had virtually zero hope spanning that awful canyon of the last decade. I was stymied beneath a tyrannical dragon, abject poverty common in rural Oklahoma, and constantly smashed by painful disabilities. Because of Larry, I believed I could despite the pain. I could, despite my inability to function normally. If Larry could, I could. He probably doesn't know that. Maybe he does. In fact, I didn't realize it until I just wrote it. How powerful we all are without realizing it for varying differences.

Since that time, ya'll have seen me through back surgery and its affects. I giggle when remembering showing up at the garden party shortly after surgery or, before that, when Lisa stopped by to give me plants LOL. I was so very sick. Very sick. But, Carol had back surgery, too. It never stopped her! With that, I refused to let mine stop me. Some have sent me seeds so easy to grow, so wonderful in flavor I could never live without them in the garden or the memories of those behind them. And when I couldn't afford the stupid stamps, they mailed them to me anyway. I promised myself to pay it forward in the very altruistic spirit intrinsic to most who garden. Were they good people before gardening or did gardening make them better people? I wonder!

Many have given me advice, inspired hope, provided emotional validation for the gardening crazies and served various cautions and warnings on a silver platter that would obliterate years of hard-earned lessons. It's up to me to take them off that platter. And these two silly plants is probably another. lol

For principle or politics, for survival or self-awareness or whatever reason that got me plugging plants and seeds into dirt, my only hope rested in growing my own food. I had to believe it fate. I couldn't even afford a stupid $4 bag of nitrogen. This land we moved onto had all the tools, buckets and a plethora of plant pots and a very large empty back yard without cables, plumbing or anything beneath. It was as if it was waiting for me to start digging!

For those who are inclined: the house had all the spiritual materials that I would ever need to read and study including expensive interlinear bibles in English, Greek and Hebrew that were left behind and much more including a complete English translated copy of the dead sea scrolls. And much more. I guess the previous tenant had given up on gd and left Him behind, but gd had not given up on me.

I'm still using the thirty-year old hoes, hay forks, tree pruners and hand tools we discovered in the old garden shed that is now falling over. I refuse to replace them. Every time I get a splinter from a battered old handle, it reminds me where I started and what I was gifted. Of course, I would quietly mumble because I couldn't afford to paint over them forgetting the gratitude. Eventually, the old tools worked the soil in their own perfect way. Their heads pop off the handle in the process. Frustrating. (They are now in tow with Bill to work so they can be welded)

I even have a weed eater, but I must stop every foot, dismantle the twine housing and untangle the twine. Slow and tedious just like everything else. Sometimes it's easier and faster to trim by hand, but trying to make the best of it is important. In my neighborhood, we have the best house on the block. Perspective!

I kept in mind what my mother used to say, "The smallest rudder can move the biggest boat, but only if it's moving." I know my situation isn't something she would even dream of in her upper-middle class ways, but I know her love for down-home goodness and gardening shadowed her coming out of Arkansas into Oklahoma before I was born against her desires. Even she would admit, "You can take the girl out of Arkansas, but you cannot take the Arkansas out of the girl." She always had a deep love for 'forest gardening' which research proves is a part of permacutlure. I think she's one of many that never learned to give up chasing that false sense of prestige, pride and power to really hone in on what they truly love. You know. What really matters in the end. She never really taught me anything, but to ride a horse. Seriously. But like most parents, she was always an example - either good or bad. In that, I highly recommend the priority switch. It's worth letting go of the crap and just digging in! But that's just my experience.

As for the nitrogen supplement, I didn't know it wasn't necessary. I couldn't afford soil testing until last year. Instead, I scraped and saved to buy my first 2 pounds of red wiggler worms. Easy purchase for most, a major financial decision for me. These were promptly massacred by my inexperience. Then, a friend in Minnesota spent hours one week digging up her yard worms as a replacement. The descending generations of those worms continue to thrive unhindered by me. Approximately 25lbs of worms produce my nitrogen and more. I'll never need purchase nor apply synthetic nitrogen. My own struggles had forged a healthier path as I learned to garden organically. Today, I have bunnies - a nice strategy to provide manure in a city residence.

The miniscule success resulting from my early garden sparked overwhelming feels of security. In those days, security didn't come often. When it did, it was hard-won and fleeting. It was not a reservoir at any time for which one could capitalize fully as I had experienced in the past. Like .. Seize the moment! No. Security was more of a tease. It was only a slight trickle that would pass our way and most was imaginative like a reprieve from an unending blight. Enjoy it while you can. In those moments, despair lost its edge. I realized gardening was the best way to obtain those fleeting moments of security. I couldn't change life, but I could change that soil. I could work with it. I could grow food and even pretty flowers. Unlike me, that soil could prosper. And I could be proud when it did. (I had no idea this would take years. LOL)

Gardening and Oklahoma Gardenweb swept away a slapping abusive social existence while offering reprieve from ghastly desperation. Instead, gardening offered a formidable presence of peace (aside from my anger at life). There's a special word for this that encompasses the full context of its meaning out of all languages on earth. It means peace including healing, health, prosperity, sanity and abundant peace. That word is "shalowm" in Hebrew. This is true despite any religious ideology. Pure etomology. There's no better word to describe effect of gardening than Shalowm. In the meanwhile, this forum became a beacon of light in the midst of much confusion and lack of understanding. Ya'll didn't need to know that I had holes in my socks or bungee cords holding the truck together. Nor did you care that I could not fashion a garden in the most aesthetically pleasing way with purchased wood shavings or specialized containers and irrigation. You didn't care what gd I believed in or that I believed in gd at all. You only cared that I believe in that soil and in the guaranteed fruition from proper nurturing, loving and tending the soil. Even today, I still have doubts in myself, but that soil .... ya'll know.

The depression-easing gardening stuff is scientifically proven. It, literally, is stowed away in compost soils making us to yearn dig, till, sow, water, stress out and repeat, repeat, repeat. That obsession became etched onto my brain and tilled into the soil of soul from the very first compost pile. I have been awash with an intrinsic earnestness to recreate. And repeat.

As I see the snow outdoors and impatiently wait for its thaw, I realize my impatience is born of this desire. It can only happen in spring and early summer and in passing during fall (if we have a fall LOL. Heck, if we have a spring for that matter)._______

One is not a writer because of a study of grammar or a desire to write a compelling story. A writer is one who cannot refrain from it. So, apologies if you find these writings annoying. I cannot help it and I don't see any need to file away my ramblings when someone .. even one, might enjoy them. If you do, it is my gift to you. I could never repay this forum for its gifts. Houzz or no! haaha