Manzanita

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

The urn-shaped flower is the Ericaceae standard — narrow-mouthed and hanging — and bumblebee queens emerging in a Californian winter are among the first to work it.

Worth knowing

The critical winter and early-spring source across Californian chaparral, feeding colonies through the build-up towards almond pollination.

Flowering

In flower

December to March (northern hemisphere)

A genuine winter flowering, and the first real forage of the Californian year.

When nectar flows

Steady through mild winter weather, and its value comes almost entirely from timing — this is nectar in January.

What it does to the honey

Gives a pale honey with a delicate, faintly spicy floral character and a clean short finish.

Growing it

Conditions

Sharp drainage, acid soil, full sun and — crucially — no summer water. Established manzanitas are frequently killed by irrigation.

Size

1-4 m depending on species.

Native range

Western North America, overwhelmingly California and the Pacific Northwest, on dry acid soils in chaparral and open forest.

Suits

Large gardens, Small gardens

• One of the best winter forage shrubs available in a Mediterranean-climate garden.
• It resents summer watering more than almost any other ornamental shrub. Plant it and leave it alone.

What it looks like

A gnarled evergreen shrub with strikingly smooth mahogany-red bark, stiff grey-green leaves held edge-on to the sun, and drooping clusters of small waxy white or pink urn-shaped flowers.