Ensure moist, acidic soil. This plant can tolerate some clay, but it must drain well. To control growth, use a spade or shovel each year to terminate some of the growth around the edges, digging out both roots and woody stems. This low-grower does fine in shade, but its best flowering, fruiting, and foliage color will come with good access to sunshine at different times throughout the day.

This is a low-growing shrub that can be used as 'ground cover' for all seasons. Bell-shaped white flowers decorate this beauty in summer. Flowers are followed by bright red berries that hold tight all winter and spring. And what is best, this ground cover-shrub is more than evergreen—in winter, some of its lush green foliage takes on a metallic purple tone. With leaves that smell like wintergreen when crushed, American Wintergreen or Boxberry adds pleasing fragrance to the list of what it offers. But its best gift has to be its unending visual interest.