Salal
Gaultheria shallon
also called shallon, lemon leaf
A leathery evergreen of the Pacific northwest understory, with urn-shaped pink flowers, edible blue-black berries and the best foliage in the shade garden.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 3 ft 3 in
- In-row spacing
- 2 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 3 ft 11 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
Calendar (from your frost dates)
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 150 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- at the first fall frost
Growing
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Sunlight
- Full to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Acid, humus-rich, moist but drained
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 6a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
Harvest
- When
- The berries ripen in late summer, about 150 days from flowering. Foliage can be cut for the vase at any time of year.
- What to look for
- The berries are deep blue-black, dull rather than shiny, and soft to the touch.
- How to harvest
- Strip the berries from the arching sprays by hand. For foliage, cut whole stems of mature leathery leaves — new soft growth wilts in the vase.
- How often
- One or two picks in late summer for the fruit; cut foliage all year as needed.
- Storing the crop
- Berries keep a few days refrigerated and dry or freeze well; they are seedy and mild, and best in a jam or a pemmican-style fruit cake. Cut foliage lasts two or three weeks in water.
Pests & problems
- Aphids Small sap-sucking insects — greenfly, blackfly — that cluster on soft new growth and excrete sticky honeydew. Squash by hand, hose off with water, and encourage ladybirds and lacewings.
- Scale insects Immobile brown or white bumps fixed to stems and leaf undersides, sucking sap and weakening growth. Wipe off with a damp cloth or dab with horticultural soap; watch for the sooty mold that follows.
- Leaf spot Brown or black spots that spread and merge in wet weather, sometimes with yellow halos. Pick off affected leaves, clear fallen ones, and water at the base.
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly Syrphidae
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyzaHunts Aphids
A tiny midge whose orange maggots paralyze aphids and drink them dry, twenty or more each. Sold as a greenhouse biological control and resident outdoors wherever there are small nectar flowers and an unsprayed aphid colony to find.
- Assassin bug ReduviidaeHunts Aphids
A patient ambusher with a curved beak it drives into whatever it catches — caterpillars, beetles, bugs, and the occasional bee, so count it a generalist rather than a specialist. It will jab a careless finger too, so admire it and leave it be.
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Aphids
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Aphids
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Dragonflies & damselflies OdonataHunts Aphids
Aerial hunters that take mosquitoes, midges and small flies on the wing all day, and whose larvae spend a year or more clearing the same insects from the water. A pond with planted margins and no fish is the way to have them.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Aphids
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Aphids
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Aphids
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Aphids
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Praying mantis MantidaeHunts Aphids
A sit-and-wait ambusher that snatches caterpillars, beetles, and anything else that wanders close — friend and foe alike, so count it a mixed blessing. Tall, structured plantings give it perches and egg-case anchors.
- Soldier beetle CantharidaeHunts Aphids
Soft-winged beetles seen mating on flower heads in high summer; adults and larvae both take aphids and soft grubs. Open composite flowers are their landing pads and hunting grounds.
- Spiders AraneaeHunts Aphids
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
Did you know?
Its cut foliage is a mainstay of the florist trade under the name lemon leaf, and it keeps in a vase for weeks.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com