Wintergreen

Wintergreen is a low, broad-leaf evergreen shrub. To grow it you need a fairly acid, organic soil. When I planted mine, I incorporated lots of organic matter into the bed. This particular bed is mulched with pine needles which I topdress every year or so to maintain the acidity. It slowly spreads to form a mat which can be divided to get more plants. Mine has been very slow growing and has never flowered appreciably for me. I suspect it would do better in a natural evergreen forest setting.

This is another one of those plants that made an impression on me as a child growing up in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin. Walking a trail along a river near his boyhood home, my father would show us the glossy leaves of the many wintergreen plants that grew under the hemlocks. We would crush the tough leaves and smell their cool, fresh aroma. To this day eating Wintergreen Life Savers takes me back to those woods.