Author: admin

My energy is coming back after a long, lazy winter. The longer days mean more time to work in the garden on the weekdays after work and no excuses at all on the weekends. Well, the rain could be an excuse. But even I don’t believe myself when I try to use that one.

During this week, I took some of the seedlings from last year and planted them out in the garden. These included Oregon sunshine, lupine, fleabane, checkermallows, fringecups, and one western columbine. Besides getting these plants out to their forever homes in the native garden and the memory garden, a welcome bonus is the free space left on the shelves for new native plants.

Today, I took early cuttings of Douglas aster plants. Last year, I tried this softwood cutting technique and it was very successful. This year, I took 18 cuttings–an entire tray.

My aster patch is very healthy and dense. It would not damage the planting at all if I took 100 cuttings. Maybe next year! We’ll see how they do.

The red-flowered currant cuttings I took last summer look strong. There are five or six of them and I pulled them out of the greenhouse so they can get some rain and wind. One precocious cutting was blooming!

My red-flowered currant plants from the nursery, which were the parents of these cuttings, appear to be a very light-flowered cultivar. They are beautiful, but not as showy as the true red plants. I plan to add a red one this year so I can get cuttings of that going forward, as I think that will be a more popular choice for folks to add to their gardens. These lighter-colored ones will work just fine for guerilla gardening, though.

Today was also a pricking-out day for native seedlings. Specifically, I potted on a few dozen Gilia capitata and fringecups.

The Gilia seedlings, above, were decent-sized and pretty easy to move on. But the fringecups were tiny and delicate. I probably should have waited. Luckily, I have another pot of seedlings that just sprouted so all will not be lost, regardless.

There are other seedlings coming along, too–new ones every day, it seems.

The rain is actually an excellent reason to go out to the native plant garden because I always know the lupines will be sparkling.

It looks like something has been chewing the lupine leaves–maybe the eastern cottontail rabbit I saw in the yard this week. But it looks like maybe some insects are eating them, too.

My favorite animal sighting was this fledgling junco that flew in front of Rafa and clung to the screen of the greenhouse door this afternoon. I was worried that Rafa might find the little guy and eat him so I moved him into the dog yard and blocked Rafa’s access. He seemed fairly unafraid in my hand and flew to a branch in the lilac and called to his mom, who visited him a few times while I watched.

It seemed very early to have baby birds fledging but I had noticed some nesting behavior from the juncos weeks ago. It seems likely they will have several broods this year. I am so excited that our yard provides them the habitat to nest and raise cute little babies like this guy.

The earliest native flowers in my native plant garden are also the earliest ones around the neighborhood, Oregon grape (Berberis aquifolium), and osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis). Here are some photos of the osoberry in my garden. When I tried to take a photo of the Oregon grape, a female dark-eyed Junco was flushed. She was obviously nesting nearby so I left her to it.

The osoberry is covered with flowers this year and I am hopeful it will set a bunch of berries.

Just when I thought my osoberry was amazing, I walked down to Ingraham High School and saw how spectacular these lovely shrubs can be.

I never really noticed how beautiful Oregon grape flower buds are–they are brilliant even before they open.

The update on native seedlings is that the Gilia seedlings are still doing well and need to be transplanted, the fringecups are also doing well. There are dozens of Geum macrophyllum seedlings that germinated in the last few weeks. The dozens of lupines are getting true leaves at this point, too, so they will need to be transplanted soon. The year-old seedlings are starting to stir from their dormancy, including the Oregon sunshine plants, the Erigeron speciosa seedlings, and probably a dozen Sidalcea plants.

There are some guerilla gardening opportunities in the neighborhood. A bunch of Cistus shrubs in a long stretch of parking strips in a nearby development died last year, likely due to the unusually cold winter. The dead shrubs were cut to the ground but no replacements have been put in. There is a lot of space between and around where the shrubs were planted, too. My intention is to sneak a bunch of natives in those strips since no one seems to really maintain them or care. On the other side of the same development, there is a sloped bank that stretches an entire block which would be perfect for some natives, as well. I will be propagating and planting for years to come. Lastly, the property all around Ingraham is already planted with native plants so I can sneak some of the volunteer Douglas fir and madrona seedlings onto that property.

It can be tough to know what fauna is actually making itself at home in our garden. Trail cams provide some great data and wonderful videos. I placed one in front of the waterfall in the woodland garden and have had some wonderful surprises.

I was shocked to see that some of the seeds I planted back in November have sprouted already. These native plants really are very hardy.

Lupine and Gilia seedlings are braving the January cold and rain. I am curious how they will fare with spring still months away.

Native plants that did better than survive the chilly temps and snow cover include the checkermallows and the lupines in the native plant garden.

The first two photos are of Lupine species and the last three are Sidalcea. They were all started from seed over the last two years.

Speaking of seeds, winter is a time when invasive plants really come into focus as I walk around the neighborhood. There is an unusual English holly tree a few blocks away that demonstrates why hollies are so successful in spreading everywhere. Usually, hollies have berries in clusters of just a few but this tree has huge bunches of berries.

Not surprisingly, this tree has a lot of starlings and American robins around it, picking berries and dropping seeds for miles around.

When I walk our new puppy around the neighborhood I use the Merlin Bird ID app’s sound identification feature to identify what birds are around. Our north Seattle neighborhood is unusual in that it features a bounty of old, large native trees. There are large Douglas fir trees in many yards, some large western red cedar trees, and less common are Pacific dogwood, madrone, red alder, and bigleaf maples. Most of the landscaping here features non-native ornamental imported plants and lawns.

Birds that have been confirmed in our yard or within a few blocks of here include:

American robin–lots of these–dozens in small flocks mostly around berry- or fruit-producing trees, including cotoneaster, holly, mountain ash, and others.

Dark-eyed junco–always common here now (they used to be rare twenty years ago), they feed in small flocks and have nested in our yard the last few years.

House finch–many of these birds in the neighborhood the last month or so; they do not come to our suet or seed feeder, thankfully, as they are susceptible to highly contagious avian diseases. They nest in shrubs on our fenceline with the neighbor to the north.

Pacific wren–I was not aware that these birds came to our neighborhood until this year with the sound identification app. I have seen them before, I’m sure, but they look similar to the Bewick’s wrens that next in our yard every year

Song sparrow–already singing around the neighborhood, these cheerful sparrows have a lovely song. They feed on the suet in the yard sometimes but the songs are not heard in our yard yet.

American crow–pairs of crows seem to have staked out every block in the neighborhood. We have our own Half Beak and Full Beak that we have been feeding for more than ten years in the front yard.

Chestnut-backed chickadee–common in our yard and around the neighborhood. They stay here year-round and their sounds are slightly different than the black-capped chickadees that are also common here. A pair was nesting in a nest box in our backyard two years ago.

Black-capped chickadee–common, tame, smart little birds that feed at our seed feeder and suet feeder, caching seeds around the neighborhood. They also nest in boxes in our yard.

Red-breasted nuthatch–gorgeous little tree creepers with distinctive calls. They eat seeds from our feeder in the fall/winter mostly. I hear them in the big Douglas fir trees mostly.

Golden-crowned kinglet–gorgeous, tiny birds that seem common here in the winter this year. The sound identification app helps with these little birds because they are usually in deep cover and in flocks with other small birds.

Yellow-rumped warbler–another winter resident, there are quite a few of these birds around the neighborhood and they feed at our suet feeder every day. Elegant birds with great camouflage colors that include brilliant yellows underneath.

Bushtit–flocks of these tiny birds descend on our suet feeder (up to eight at a time on the small feeder). They are very tame and go about their business picking bugs off all the plants in the yard no matter how close they get to me. They are common year-round and have nested with their hanging basket nest in our Douglas fir several times over the year.

Steller’s jay–it is tough to miss these noisy jokesters as they scream and call out loudly. These are year-round residents here and they travel in pairs or small family groups. They will feed at the suet feeder occasionally.

Northern flicker–how these spectacular woodpeckers make a living in city neighborhoods is a mystery to me. Yet they do. I remember twenty-seven years ago when we were looking at houses that I heard and saw a flicker in the trees around this house and I took it as a good omen. They are still here year-round and eat at the suet feeder most days.

Bewick’s wren–sassy little birds that travel individually or in pairs here year-round. They feed at the suet feeder but only in spring. They nest in boxes in the yard.

Anna’s hummingbird–another surprising year-round resident. Hummingbirds never used to spend the winter around Seattle but they have adapted to spending all winter here in the last twenty or thirty years. This time of year I mostly notice the males who are issuing their metallic calls from treetops and fighting for territory.

European starling–we do not see starlings here all year but I think they are probably around. In winter, I see them around food sources like berry- and fruit-producing trees and rarely on the suet feeder. They are noisy and are often heard before they are seen. This species was introduced in the 1890s and has spread throughout the US.

Spotted towhee–beautiful, big sparrows that are around all year here, though not as frequent in our yard in winter. They will eat the seeds that fall from the feeder. We had towhees nesting in the yard the last few years.

Less common birds that I have seen (or heard) lately in the neighborhood include a varied thrush, purple finches, red crossbills, brown creepers, and hairy woodpeckers.

This list of species seems like a wonderful baseline from which to grow our biodiversity. If we plant more native plants, the number of native birds will increase as well as the number of species represented in the neighborhood.

The University of Washington has recognized the need to utilize more native plants and treat its landscapes with more respect for nature. One change is to leave the trees that get cut or fall near where they fell.

These large cottonwood trunks have been left to rot in place an they are already attracting moss and lichens.

Ingraham High School has an area dedicated to native trees and they are taking similar steps, leaving some large trees on the forest floor that have fallen in the last few months.

The last few weeks I have noticed the native blackberry vines, Rubus ursinus, have colored up to an incredible red in the cold winter weather. I need to add some of these to my native plant garden to replace the English ivy vines I am removing. So beautiful and I have heard the berries are delicious though I have never seen one in the wild. The photos show the colorful vines mixed with bracken ferns and salal.

It can be difficult to convince people to plant native flora because we all have so many amazing choices of non-native plants from around the world for every possible use and to match any possible theme. When people say natives are boring, though, I want them to look closer at our native plants.

Here are some simple photos of Cornus sericea leaves that have flared up in the last week.

Rafa, our new puppy, has led me on some walks lately and I found a stand of salal that doesn’t appear to belong to anyone that is loaded with berries. Every time we go by, I grab a handful of berries. I sprinkled some in the native plant garden to see if they will sprout on their own. Today, I also planted some salal berries in a pot and put them with the other seed pots on the shelves outside the greenhouse. The native roses in the native garden have lots of hips this year so I grabbed a few of them, too, and put them in pots. The recent rains have watered the seed pots nicely. I can’t wait for spring!

I found SeaDance Nursery on Etsy and ordered a bunch of native plant seeds. In addition to those seeds, there were some in the refrigerator that I had collected over the last few months. It is supposed to rain in a few days so today is the day I planted all the native seeds in pots and then sprinkled the remaining ones in the native garden.

My seed-planting process is not at all fancy. I dump a bunch of dirt in the trays/pots, mainly previously used potting soil/seed starting mix. For trays, I used some aluminum frozen food containers from the food service we subscribe to (Mosaic).

The plant types include two types of lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus, Lupinus rivularis), dog violets (Viola adunca), fringecups, piggyback plants, scurf peas, Columbian lilies, globe gilias, bleeding hearts, largeleaf avens, Douglas aster, vine maples, and osoberries.

The hope is that the seeds will germinate next spring. The seedlings will remain in their trays/pots for a full year and be planted out in the early spring of 2024. I have a fair amount of seedlings and cuttings that will be ready to plant out in the spring of 2023, as well, including Douglas aster, Lupinus polyphyllus, Oregon sunshine, fleabane, and Puget gumweed.

The best part of planting seeds today is that I had lots of help from an old friend, Halfbeak, the crow we have been friends with for ten or more years.

And even better, my new friend, our new dog, Rafa. He wandered around the area and explored and wondered why I am so fascinated with dirt.

Ultimately, with all the new activities in his third day from the shelter, our little Jack Russell/dachshund puppy got worn out.

Just over a month ago, Leon and I visited the Tonasket cabin with some friends. It was warm and sunny there and I became a little obsessed with finding and photographing the late butterflies and moths around the property and discovering the birds in the area based on their calls using the Merlin Sound ID app.

The interesting thing about where the pollinators were found is that they were most common on the invasive knapweed that is along the roadsides near our cabin. There were large drifts of knapweed buzzing with all manner of bees, wasps, hornets, moths, and butterflies.

Here is a dump of some photos and at the end some bug names.

The bright orange butterfly is the Mormon fritillary, followed by a beautiful yellow underwing moth, a common wood nymph butterfly, a heath butterfly, a festive tiger beetle, a small copper butterfly, another Mormon fritillary, a light brocade moth, another common wood nymph butterfly, a woodland skipper butterfly, a feathered gothic moth, a green cutworm moth, dingy cutworm moth, woodland skipper butterflies, silvered blue butterflies, grass wave moth, red-shanked grasshopper, British tube wasp.

The last two photos are of some fungal diseases on currant bush and Douglas maple–it was interesting to see these highly infected plants and to know that this is all part of nature and they will likely be fine next year.

There have been a lot of rats around the house this year and Leon traps them now and then to try to keep the population down. One of the traps he set in the greenhouse disappeared and two days later I heard some shuffling outside my home office window. I said, “Leon, I hear something outside my window here–can you go check?” And he did.

It was a poor young opossum with the rat trap on its toes. Leon set it free and picked it up because it was cute and he had to show me! He then let it go in our woodland garden and it wandered away during the night. We had opossums in the neighborhood when we first moved here 27 years ago. One was living in our crawl space, and Leon picked that one up, too. I’m excited that a creature like this is finding space to exist in our neighborhood.

The summer seemed so extremely hot and dry and was quite miserable from a gardener’s perspective. The ornamentals put on their early show and then fizzled early. The natives are faring better but I have supplemented their water every week or two to be sure I don’t lose any. The summer of 2022 was the driest summer in Seattle’s history. And the fall is dry so far, too–and no rain in the forecast for at least ten more days. I’ve noticed how the western red cedars are putting out far more cones than usual. When plants are stressed one response is to hyper-procreate to try to ensure the survival of the species. I really hope all these trees don’t get sick and die in the near future. The evergreen state feels like the everbrown state lately.

Some of the perennials in my native plant garden have also hyper-procreated (as have some of my relatives, to be sure). I harvested some seeds today and will plant them over the winter solstice holiday break with the native seeds I purchased.

The fluffy seeds are Douglas aster, the tiny ones are large-leaved avens, and the pea pods are large-leaved lupine.

My worries about the thimbleberry divisions were misplaced. They have leafed back out and look fresh and healthy.

My porch-light “mothing” hobby has dwindled a bit with the cooler weather but there are still some fun surprises. Here are some of the gorgeous visitors in the past month.

The most common moths in September were brown-lined loopers and small dusty waves. There have been a few sliver “y” moths, too–one of my favorites. Other beautiful moths are the light brown apple moth, the flame carpet moth, the square-barred bell moth, the gold ribbon argent moth, the thicket knot-horn moth, and the garden rose tortrix moth, whose claim to fame is looking exactly like a splat of bird crap. The small dusty waves are interesting because they come in myriad colors and sizes–from white to grey and with varying numbers of spots. As humans, we are always looking for animals to be easily identifiable. We forget that each of us belongs to the species Homo sapiens and look at how varied we are! Most animals have significant variability in their appearance, too. Inconvenient for identification, but critical to survival and evolution.

The leaf hopper was a tiny, spectacular beauty, Menosoma cincta. The green jewel is the southern green shield bug. And the spider is a surprising one, possibly the Eurasian armored long-jawed spider, a long way from home.

As mentioned in previous posts, skipper butterflies are my favorites and in the last few years, I’ve only ever seen one at a time and only for a day or two all year. There were four, and likely five, skippers flitting around the memory garden today, nectaring on catmint and verbena! I am attributing this to my native-forward landscaping and insect-friendly practices. I went crazy with the phone camera and the macro lens and the little beauties were less photo-shy today.

I hope that these skippers will mate and lay eggs in my garden on the native grasses and next year there will be even more of these bronze beauties.

There were a few other pollinators out today, too.

Of the eight Douglas aster cuttings that I took, seven of them were successful. I potted them into 4″ pots today and moved them outside the greenhouse so they can get used to the weather. These will go into the garden in late September or early October when the rains have returned, and one is destined for a pot in Dean and Brian’s yard in Happy Valley. The red-flowered currant and ocean spray cuttings seem less far along and likely less successful. I will leave them in their starting pots until spring and then pot them on.

As I worked in the garden and greenhouse today I listened to David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet. He has been a favorite of mine for a long time and this audible book is good to hear while working in a native garden–rewilding is one of the calls to action. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has kids or grandkids and cares about the future of humans on this planet or preserving the other life on this planet. It is not joyful or fun to hear about all the missteps humans have made since the dawn of man, but Attenborough provides a map for a better future during this narrow window of time when changes could still make a difference.

In a previous blog, I showed the Elymus grass that had turned brown and I cut the whole bunch of them down. It seemed dramatic and dangerous at the time. As so often happens, however, Mother Nature was nonplussed.

The native plant garden isn’t pretty, perfect, or full of flowers. The goal is for it to be attractive to bugs and birds and mammals. And someday, amphibians and reptiles. So, it doesn’t have to look good to me or to any neighbors. I’m happy if it is just interesting to people so they ask questions. There is a lot of space still in my little garden that doesn’t have plants at all. Some of the seedlings and starts are just putting on their first year of growth this year. They are plants that people don’t normally see in a standard garden–things like Puget gumweed, Oregon sunshine, checker mallow, native grasses, fireweed, columbine, dock, nettle, and lupine.

Here are some photos of those little investments in the native future.

There are parts of the garden that are lovely to me (even though that doesn’t matter, of course!). This little shady corner has some happy natives with beautiful leaves.

Luckily, I’m not the only one who finds something of interest in this little corner. Look at all the holes in the large-leaved avens foliage! Excellent! So much foliage entering the food web!