Sonoma Manzanita

Sonoma manzanita is a California native that has found a reliable second home in Western Washington's drier residential sites. In its native habitat, Sonoma County, where it is considered endangered, it grows as a low, spreading shrub with smooth red-black bark and small, dense clusters of white to pinkish flowers in spring. The cultivar 'Howard McMinn' is the form you will find in the regional nursery trade: a compact evergreen shrub reaching about two feet tall with a wider spread, tight foliage, and the same attractive bark that defines the genus.

The key to growing manzanita in Western Washington is drainage. The species evolved on the dry, rocky slopes of the California chaparral and tolerates drought exceptionally well once established, but it will rot out in the saturated clay soils that define much of the Puget Sound lowlands. Plant it in full sun on a slope, in a raised bed, or anywhere water moves through the root zone quickly. Do not irrigate established plants in summer, this is one of the few species where summer water is the threat, not the remedy. Six diseases and three pests are tracked, including Phytophthora root rot, which is the one that kills it. Get the drainage right and manzanita is a beautiful, drought-proof, four-season evergreen shrub. Get it wrong and you will be pulling out a dead plant within two years.