If You Plant It, They Will Come

Targets are useful for helping homeowners understand what makes up a useful level of biodiversity in our yards. The target set by Doug Tallamy and others is 70%. I never really explored what that meant, or how it should be measured.

Recently, though, I was listening to a podcast about planting natives, and the speaker mentioned that the metric is biomass, not the number of plants or species.

While it has felt like “wilding” our yard has been a slow process, the podcast made me realize that I am likely already at 70% with the giant Douglas fir tree on our property. It weighs thousands of pounds and has millions of needles, miles of needles. I really notice how huge it is when it creates a blizzard of pollen cones. They are covering the edge of the street and dropping onto all the gardens under the tree, giving an organic boost to the soil all around.

I won’t stop adding natives to my yard, but this was a nice reminder of how important that wonderful, huge tree is to the neighborhood’s biodiversity. Everyone should consider adding a large native tree to their yard–they grow faster than you think.

I have a bunch of not-quite-native plants that I started from seed last year–scarlet monkey flowers, Erythranthe cardinalis. My research was poor, and I was sure this was a locally native species. After I grew a few dozen of them from seed, I researched them again and realized they were native to Oregon and California, not to the Seattle area. But I couldn’t waste them. I planted them around the yard. Now they are blooming for the first time, and they are beautiful! Interesting and bright. And the hummingbirds love them.

No regrets on these plants now, but I will be more thorough in my research going forward!

The seedlings keep popping up in my native seed pots. It seems clear that the germination guides I found online for each species were accurate, and the extra effort to follow those guides was well worth it. Here are some of the seedlings, looking healthy and strong:

Seedlings here include a year-old cascara tree, western buttercup, fringecup, Douglas aster, madrone, vine maple, Oregon grapes (2 pots), osoberry, ocean spray, and pacific crab apple.

There are hundreds of other seedlings, too, including western hemlock, western red cedar, and western columbine.

There are some lovely native blooms around the garden this month, so I will drop some photos here for you to share their amazing beauty.

Our yard, the ecosystem we live in, is full of birds lately. Likely, many are breeding in our yard or very nearby. Here are a few photos from the yard this week.

Having a wild and native-planted yard really does bring the birds in. I always find birds like the bushtit above in the madrone tree that sprang up under our Douglas fir. While I walk Rafa every day, I see which yards have birds and which ones have few/none. It seems so simple. The yards with big native trees have birds. The yards with native shrubs and perennials have birds. And the messier yards, the ones with thickets and brambles, have many birds. The yards with perfect lawns and few/well-clipped shrubs and trees, have few birds.

When I see the local merlins, they are in the tallest Douglas fir trees, along with band-tailed pigeons. The Douglas fir trees in the neighborhood are always atwitter with chickadees, kinglets, and nuthatches. And the American robin male sings from the top of the western red cedar across the street. They all have other trees they can choose, but they are drawn to the trees they know best, the ones they evolved alongside.

Our brave and barky dog announced a visitor at the front door last week. It turned out to be Mark, a neighbor from about four blocks down 137th. I had noticed a lot of changes around his yard and parking strip in my walks to and from the bus. Mark wanted gardening advice. He had been trying to grow things in his newly de-lawned parking strip, but nothing much seemed to be taking root. His goal with the parking strip is to reduce maintenance and add beauty–a perfect place for Seattle native plants! I told Mark I would gather up some plants and seeds for him and get back to him soon.

It is not the best time to share plants. Most of my seedlings are all too small to share. But I had enough larger seedlings and plants left over from last year to give him a tray of columbines, lupines, Oregon sunshine, Douglas aster, and houndstongue–21 plants in all.

I dropped these off at Mark’s house and texted him planting instructions. Within a day, they were planted in his sad, bare parking strip, making it just a little less sad. Mark’s parking strip holds so much potential!

Mark mentioned that friends and neighbors had recommended certain seeds to plant, but glancing around, I only saw some sunflowers and poppies, and very few of those. So I jumped online and ordered some big seed packets from Eden Brothers. I dropped those off with him today, including quick-to-flower types, and more pure native blends that will take a year or two to establish.

What a great opportunity to add another parking strip to our neighborhood’s native habitat. There is another de-lawned parking strip a block away from Mark’s place. Who knows, maybe I can convince them to go native, too!

Stuart, who is just two houses away from us, has the purest native garden and parking strip, and it is blooming beautifully right now. Really beautiful! Neighbors are getting the message, or at least are open to trying native plants — the result is the same for native fauna.

Here are a few blooms this week in my own modest native garden.

Spring can be overwhelming for Seattleites. We hibernate all winter, then the days stretch a little, and the sun pops out, and suddenly we are trying to finish a million garden chores in a single day. Or is that just me?

I managed to take a little time this spring to look around my own native plant garden, native plantings at the North Acre dog park, and around Twin Ponds. Seeing spring unfold in these places is such a joy. Here are some photos of the beauty I’ve noticed.

Native plant propagation is going very well this year–many pots of seedlings that will need to be potted on and cared for, including madrone, western buttercup, western columbine, Douglas aster, biscuitroot, yarrow, osoberry, fringecup, vine maple, oceanspray, choke cherry, western hemlock, red alder, western red cedar, and showy fleabane! I am so excited for all the tree seedlings, especially as I haven’t had much luck with them before.

In addition to seeds, I took cuttings of Douglas aster over the last few weeks and potted them up from my boisterous clumps around the yard. Some will already be rooted by now — they grow quickly as long as I keep them moist.

The “They” in “If You Plant It, They Will Come” have definitely been showing up in numbers here in the yard. We had two dark-eyed junco nests (both sadly raided, but early enough they will likely begin again), for sure, and Bewick’s wrens nesting in a box near Leon’s Bedrock studio. In addition, I believe the following are nesting on our property or very near: spotted towhees, bushtits, house finches, song sparrows, and red-breasted nuthatches. And I heard flickers in the Norway maple across the street where a pair nested last year. It looks promising that they will raise young there again! The crows are all over the yard/neighborhood, but I haven’t seen their nest yet. I also hear a male robin singing his heart out morning and night.

All of that to say that nature really wants a chance. She just keeps trying. And if we give her space, help her out a bit, she’ll make amazing things happen right in front of our astonished eyes.

Part of my goal with IfYouPlantIt is to get more native plants out in the neighborhood. I have a surplus of fringecup plants and so set about 14 of them out for the neighbors to take. Let’s hope they take advantage of this opportunity!

Not far from the free plant staging area, one of the TheyWillCome representatives was huddling in the shrubs, but also calling and showing off. I am hoping we’ll have a bushtit nest and some babies this year.

Bushtits build one of the most amazing nests–a hanging sack of moss and lichen far bigger than the birds that craft them, with a very soft lining. Unfortunately, crows and jays often find and destroy nests, eating the babies inside. Obviously, they often succeed, though — we have a lot of bushtits around! Hoping they succeed in our yard this year.

When I started propagating native plants, I hadn’t anticipated how long some of them might take to mature and bloom. Grass widows (Olsynium douglasii) are a perfect example. My oldest seedlings are probably five years old now. They seem tiny and fragile. Because of that, I’ve kept them in pots outside. I see their leaves pop up every year and they only seem a tiny bit bigger and more robust each year.

But this year, one of them was more robust than the others! And it flowered! My first grass widow flowers ever. I have never seen this plant growing wild.

Such a beautiful plant when it blooms; it is very grass-like otherwise, which is likely its survival strategy.

Looking around my seed pots, I found myriad seedlings popping up! They hold so much promise (and so much effort in getting them all to planting-out size!)!

Most of these were started in the summer or autumn last year, and some were planted at the end of 2025 as part of my holiday seed starting fest.

This is just a small sampling–there are hundreds of others! Easily 1,000 overall! Tony’s unofficial native nursery is in full swing!

Remember that some natives can be planted in the spring; the Pacific Northwest pollinator mixes are good candidates for spring sowing. Some options are below. And mark your calendar for purchasing some fall-planted seeds at the same time.

Native Pollinator Meadow Seed Mix 1 (For West of the Cascades)

Northwest Native Pollinator Wildflower Mixture

We brought Leon’s sculpture studio “home” by erecting a shed on the north side of our property. This involved removing the existing mass of trees, shrubs, and perennials that were there and provided some wide open and sunny spaces for a whole new garden.

I have so many plants I propagated in the last year. Of course, they are a random mix of ornamental and native plants that have no business being planted together. But they also happen to be some of my favorite plants, and the price is right, so I decided to use them as the framework for the garden and build around them. Leon is partial to hollyhocks, and I started a bunch of them from seeds we pilfered at a winery in Lodi last summer. I planted what should ultimately be a wall of hollyhocks close to his studio (Bedrock). They are not native, but they should attract some pollinators. Along the northeast fence line, I tucked in three seedlings of tall Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) and three small cuttings of red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum). These shrubs may take a few years to reach flowering size, but they should grow faster in the ground than in pots. They should attract lots of hummingbirds in early spring.

I had a healthy start of Douglas aster (Symphyotrichum subspicatum) and tucked that in a corner where its robust spreading will not cause any problems and its late summer flowers will attract a million native bees and skipper butterflies.

I had two tiny big-leaved lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus) seedlings to plant near the front of the garden. Their blue-purple flowers will attract native bumblebees in May.

Nearby, I planted three honey balm (Melittis xRoyal Velvet Distinction), a plant I have been hoping to grow for years, and finally got some starts going last autumn. They are not native here but are said to be good pollinator plants.

I left about a 3-foot blank area near the curb to accommodate parking/passengers. Behind that, I went all-in with fringecups (Tellima grandiflora). I planted two rows of them, with a mixed row of scarlet monkey flower (Erythranthe cardinalis) and blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium idahoense) in front.

I had too many tall phlox plants I started last year, so I popped three of them into this new garden, too. Pollinators love phlox, so they should be lively masses of insects by June/July.

I love taking a “before” photo of a freshly planted garden. They seem so sad, meek, and bleak. I’ll take photos again in June to see how things are doing.

I have a pot full of seedlings labeled Ocean Spray. I was trying to confirm online if they are, indeed, Holodiscus discolor. All my searches turned up no photos of just-germinated Holodiscus seedlings.

Here are photos of my seedlings. I’ll keep an eye on them and hope they turn into Ocean Sprays.

I am curious: after I post this, will AI and internet searches ever find this photograph?

This might be a bit of a stretch, but I am counting critters here that I have seen on this property or above it. I have seen one great blue heron (Ardea herodias) flying away from our property, and one on the neighbor’s house, gazing longingly at our koi pond. The photos here are not from my yard; they are from waterways around the area.

Our tiny koi pond somehow attracts herons, and we have to keep them out, or the fish will be gone. We hope they do not come to the yard. But they are spectacular birds, regardless.

I was motivated to list GBH as the critter of the day when I visited the Kenmore Park and Ride today and saw that the herons have returned to their rookery already for the 2026 breeding season.

This is a very widespread species with a range that includes North, Central, and parts of South America, the Caribbean, the Galapagos Islands, and the Azores. An all white version, known as the great white heron, is found in the Florida Keys. There are four other subspecies, as well, including the Pacific Northwest’s Ardea herodias fannini.

These largest of the local herons can be 36″ to 54″ long, 45″ to 54″ high, with a wingspan of 66″ to 79″. These are by far the largest birds around most of the time. These are majestic creatures until they open their beaks. They seem more like dinosaurs than any other local birds, and even their ridiculous squawking call brings pterodactyls to mind, though I have no idea what a pterodactyl really sounded like.

These big herons eat so many critters! Certainly fish is at the top of their menu, but they eat frogs, salamanders, snakes, lizards, turtles, rats, voles, gophers, rabbits and even other birds, such as ducks and rails!

Herons start their breeding behavior around here in December/January when they return to the rookeries, large trees where they place their communal nests. One benefit to their early start is that their breeding plumage materializes in the middle of winter, striking and bright against the gray Seattle weather. Rookeries can include up to 500 nests! They lay 3-6 eggs, usually by March or April. The eggs hatch after about 27 days. Male herons incubate the eggs in cooperation with the females.

These birds have few predators as adults, with eagles rarely taking them. The young and eggs are more vulnerable to other predators, including crows, ravens, vultures, hawks, and even black bears.

By planting more native flora around the neighborhoods, including near wetlands, we can improve the food webs that support great blue herons. We can also keep our waters healthy by not using chemicals in our yards and picking up our dog waste.

As mentioned in the previous post, many critters have been introduced to this area, and this ubiquitous spider, the cross orbweaver (Araneus diadematus) is one of them. This critter makes all the beautiful and/or annoying webs all over Seattle yards starting mid-summer and continuing through the autumn.

Introduced in the late 1800s, likely in shipping containers, these spiders have spread across the northern US and Canada and altered the ecosystems they inhabit. As mentioned earlier about the non-native species, this is another beauty that is hard to hate when you see how skilled they are at web-building. Many consider these spiders a positive addition to the landscape because they are presumed to reduce insect pests. Not that it matters now, with these spiders spread far and wide, but for those of us who don’t consider any insects pests, their benefits are not as obvious, and their potential harm to native ecosystems looms large.

You can clearly see the cross that has given these spiders their common name in the photo above.

These spiders breed and die as the weather chills, leaving egg sacs behind that hatch into hundreds of tiny yellow and black spiderlings the following spring. I often grab egg sacs and place them in the greenhouse in the fall so I will have all those great little spiderling predators eating pests in early spring.

The breeding behavior is fun to watch if you happen to catch it in process. The males sneak up on the females and ask to be let into the web. Like many spiders, they can easily be mistaken for food by the larger females. There is a fair amount of cautious questioning, plucking web strings, and making intentions known. Then, there is a brief and frantic interaction with tentative touching and tapping, and then a frantic deposit of sperm and escape. I caught a bit of the dance on video one time while I watched it unfold on our patio.

These spiders are not considered dangerous to humans, and I have had hundreds of them on my person over the years after accidentally walking through their webs, and have never, to my knowledge, been bitten. Along with egg sacs, I will sometimes pick up fat females with my bare hands late in the season and move them to the greenhouse.

The most impressive aspect of these spiders is their amazing web engineering. Sometimes the web spans what seems an impossible gap in the garden, six, eight feet, or more. Watching how they repair/improve the web every day is inspirational. Seeing a perfect web dripping with dew is an elegant sight of which I never tire.