# Highbush cranberry



## rageoda

Saw a Michigan Outdoors show on property management and they suggested highbush cranberry for wildlife, as they hold and drop fruit all winter. Just wondering if you can pick those plants up at any nursery? And/or if someone could suggest a place in the Macomb county area that has them.

If you've planted them before, I'd love to hear how well they've gone over for you. 

Thanks!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## eyesforever

rageoda said:


> Saw a Michigan Outdoors show on property management and they suggested highbush cranberry for wildlife, as they hold and drop fruit all winter. Just wondering if you can pick those plants up at any nursery? And/or if someone could suggest a place in the Macomb county area that has them.
> 
> If you've planted them before, I'd love to hear how well they've gone over for you.
> 
> Thanks!
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


 Don't know where you can buy 'em, but had one for a couple years that was given to me. Deer chewed it to bits. Never did see any 'fruit' on it.


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## Greenbush future

Not sure if the ones I have are the same, but the birds really love these bushes. The fruit hangs all winter long and I do see tracks (mostly birds) that come in and out of the area. This is on Lake Huron in a wooded lot, they are growing wild all over my land. If you were close I'd give you a bunch, but I just dont get up there often enough.


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## Linda G.

There are few things prettier at Christmas time than a bunch of highbush cranberries all covered with snow...

You'll see them because, although they're beautiful, they are apparently one of the least preferred wildlife foods. I've never seen any wildlife, including birds, go near it until they're starving. 

That said...come January, lots of snow and cold, and you'll find ruffed grouse in highbush cranberries, as well as any wild turkeys that aren't on feeders...warning, if you see wild turkeys eating highbush cranberries, that's desperation food for them, and if they don't get something solid, like corn, in them within days, they won't make it. 

Come spring during a reasonable winter when there's still other types of food available to most wildlife, and along about mid-March, you'll see entire flocks of migrating cedar waxwings in them...later, in late April/early May, if there's any berries left at all, they will lure orioles.

So, yes, plant them...but don't plant them as a mainstay wildlife food. They aren't. 

You can get highbush cranberry from any conservation district seedling sale or from most tree and shrub nurseries. They grow quickly.


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## trout

Lowes or Home depot might have them.


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## nimrod4

I believe the berries are a little tart however they do hold on during the toughest times for wildlife, "all winter long" so when the pickings are slim droves of birds that are natives year long, gamebirds such as pheasants and turkeys includes use it as a staple food source. I have noticed from what I have planted that as soon as they become of mature age and start producing berries, if a bird eats those berries and they come out the other end, their is a good chance that that dropping will become a high bush cranberry plant and hence the spread of the species. The rabbits seem to like them for cover on our property too and the deer will bed in thick areas of them as well.


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