Vaccinium ovatum - How to Keep Wedding Memories Alive

Exactly one month ago today I married the love of my life, my best friend, and the only man in this world who can cohabitate with me and somehow maintain some form of sanity...

It was a beautiful and memorable wedding held in our back yard.  In addition to the assorted help from friends and family (including the awesome wedding cake made by my former roommate) that wonderful day would not have been the day it was without the special care and attention made by my Mom (who organized nearly everything plus did the cooking and catering), and my Auntie (who was Mom's associate and also made all the floral arrangements).

A happy day!  My Auntie, me and my Mom!

While I truly (and ever will) appreciate all that everyone did (Mom there aren't thanks enough!) it is the floral arrangements that this blog will focus on.

Morning of the wedding and my Auntie is busy making the floral arrangements!

My bouquet and table décor consisted of hot pink roses, mini white carnations, Blue Statice, Dusty Miller leaves, and Baby's Breath all arranged with evergreen huckleberry from my Auntie's own garden.  Each mini bouquet was displayed in small mason jars and they were stunning!  Wanting to keep some memoirs from that happy day I dried some of the flowers, but I left the majority of them in their jars because they were so wonderful to look at, not to mention fragrant! I wanted to live in the moment for as long as I could and the flowers were a happy reminder.

Placing my bouquet in a vase, surrounded by the other floral arrangements that my Auntie made.

Gradually the roses wilted and the petals started to fall so I pulled them out.  The remainder of the cut flowers were still looking quite nice (carnations last quite a long time and the Baby's Breath and Statice actually make for great dried flowers).  Soon we returned to our regular lives and the arrangements were left to sit out on the table on our deck.  Soon the carnations started to turn brown and hubby finally asked what we were going to do with them.  With a sigh I moved to compost what was left of the arrangements and lo and behold!  The evergreen huckleberries were rooting!

One month later and this is what was left of the mini bouquets.
 

Roots!


So today, exactly one month after we were wed, my husband and I potted up the huckleberries.



Rooted huckleberries!



Potting 'em up!

I'll be honest, when I think of huckleberries I think of those juicy, red tart berries (Vaccinium parvifolium) that grow here on the west coast.  Little did I know that the West Coast boasted of yet another type of huckleberry:  Vaccinium ovatum.

 

Adding some soil...

Also known as the evergreen huckleberry, winter huckleberry or the California huckleberry, it is a small to medium sized shrub that can be found growing in conjunction with its cousin the red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium), as well as with Western Sword Ferns, Coastal Wood Fern, California Snowberry and the Common Snowberry.  All these plants grow in association with coniferous forests which are the typical landscape of the Western Pacific Coast of the United States and coastal British Columbia, where they are all native.  As such, Vaccinium ovatum requires acidic soil, yet can grow in sun or shade.  Plants growing in full sun rarely grow larger than 2-3' in height while plants growing in full shade can reach up to 10' in height!  If the soil is moist enough they can also reach about 10' in width.  In spring the plants produce pale, pink urn-shaped flowers which later become red berries that ripen to a deep dark purple, almost black.  The berries are edible and can be eaten fresh or used to make jam or preserves.

25 Evergreen Huckleberries plus a couple of iris and some asters that also needed potting.

So it seems that while not all my wedding flowers have lasted I will still have fond memories year after year as I harvest the berries from my evergreen huckleberries to make jam for my sweetheart!

Thanks Auntie!

...and they lived happily ever after!