Author: admin

We are in the heart of winter in Seattle, but you would never know it without going outside–it was sunny and bright today, but the high temperature was only 41 degrees.

I planted several pots of native plant seeds about a month ago, hoping to give them enough cold stratification on shelves outside to coax them to germinate this spring.

Today, I planted a batch of seeds of native plants from Chiltern’s in the UK.

These seeds were planted in simple potting soil in 3″ square pots. They will get watered in tomorrow when the rains come back.

As I sat these newly planted seeds on the shelf, I was shocked to seed that the Collomia grandiflora seeds I planted a month or so ago have germinated! Talk about hardy annuals! It is still mid-winter and these seedlings don’t seem fazed at all by the cold.

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I’m nervous for these little guys, but anxious to have them grow quickly into healthy seedlings that can get planted in my native plant garden when the weather warms (or even before).

When walking in a park in Happy Valley, Oregon last week with my good friend Brian, I saw a LOT of licorice ferns (Polypodium glycyrrhiza). These tree-clinging plants have an interesting growth cycle. They grow on the trunks and branches of deciduous trees–big leaf maples are a favorite. In order to maximize their own growth, their active season is fall and winter when the leaves have dropped and the ferns have access to the sunlight they need. The bonus for humans is that when the trunks and branches have dropped their leaves you can clearly see the vibrant, robust licorice ferns.

The licorice fern name, as well as “sweet root,” which is another common name, refer to the flavor of the rhizomes. Native Americans used them as sweet treats and medicine to treat colds and sore throats.

I hope I have a habitat someday that will host a hundred licorice ferns on mossy trunks and logs.

If you are unfamiliar with our local Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) trees, let me tell you a little about them. These are those strong trees full of character that you see off of I-5 as you pass between Tacoma and Olympia, particularly around Joint Base Lewis McCord. They look different from any of our other Washington trees–very distinct, with thick trunks and wide crowns–they all look weathered and old.

Garry Oaks were a major part of the indigenous people’s lives before Europeans came. They are also very important to wildlife. Over 200 different butterfly and moth caterpillars feed on them!

Read more about their importance HERE. Watch a fun video with a beautiful tree HERE. See a photo of an ancient tree HERE.

Like the plot of some 1980s Hallmark special starring Marie Osmond and Richard Thomas, my brother and I had the same gifting idea for my birthday/Christmas. I ordered a pound of Garry Oak acorns from Etsy and my plan was to pot them into tennis ball cans wrapped with festive acorn fabric and gift them to family and friends for a Very Garry Christmas. I thought this was exceedingly clever. When apprised of this plan, Leon, my more honest half (played by Morgan Fairchild in the above-mentioned movie, or possibly Joan Collins), reminded me that just because I am very Garry crazy, no one else is… And then, for my birthday, my sweet brother ordered a Garry Oak tree for my yard! So, I’m even more Garry-addicted.

Time and cursed reality squelched my enthusiasm for creating fancy Garry gifts. However, today I planted ten acorns for myself.

Why tennis ball cans? Well, I play tennis a lot and it seems a waste to throw these away without using them for something. They have the deep shape that tree roots should like. And I can check the progress of acorn roots through the clear sides.

I don’t need ten Garry Oak trees in my yard, but I will gift them or guerilla-garden them into some parks or open places that could use a keystone tree species. I’ve already forced some acorns on my good friends, Brian and Dean in Happy Valley, Oregon. They are being good sports about adding native plants to their new garden. And after all, Garry Oaks are also called Oregon White Oaks.

Tomorrow, I plan to package the rest of the acorns three or five to a bag and then post a notice on Nextdoor offering them free to neighbors who will pick them up, contact-free, from a box on the porch. I can’t think of a better way to end 2020 than to plant a mighty oak seed with all the promise that it holds for the planters and for wildlife for miles around.

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I’m not Johnny Appleseed, but maybe I am Tony Acorn…

Garry Christmas, Everyone!

There are very few places that resemble the ecosystems that existed prior to human intervention. Some friends took me to a nature park this week that hinted at the beauty European’s would have found in the mid-1500s when they first started exploring Oregon. Mount Talbert Nature Park is an oasis near Portland, a new wildland undergoing restoration, with second-growth native trees, streams, and ponds. There are handsome young western hemlock trees (Tsuga heterophylla) along the paths, some 100-foot Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii, and impressive, thick stands of western red cedar trees (Thuja plicata).

In December, you don’t expect to see buds or blooms, but the beaked hazels (Corylus cornuta) and the red alders (Alnus rubra) had catkins breaking out and already showy.

My favorite plants in this native plant nirvana were the sword ferns that carpeted acres of land under those tall conifers. They looked perfectly natural in that setting and provided a luxurious understory in dry shade.

Ferns are not prioritized as a major food web plant in the books I’ve read about restoration, but they aren’t completely lacking in their food web contributions. And it seems likely that more insects and animals use ferns than even scientists know about. It seems unlikely that plants could evolve so successfully without having hungry bugs and critters evolving right alongside to eat all those luscious fronds. I did some digging and found out that deer, rabbits, and insects do eat sword fern leaves. Interestingly, creatures eat fern spores, including mice, birds, and bats! What amazing, useful plants!

Wandering in a foggy Lower Woodland Park, I took a path I hadn’t taken before. Looking up a small hill, I could see some big tree branches had fallen, so I climbed up to get a closer look.

The morning’s heavy fog added a mystical quality to this exceptional tree. It had rotted in the center and then two large branches had peeled away from the main trunk. The tree is not dead, despite the significant damage. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the fallen branches finds a way to cling to life and keep growing.

I have been worrying and fussing about which trees to plant in my native plant garden. Specifically, I didn’t want to plant a tree that might get too big for the yard. But I realized that I’m worrying too much about something that won’t matter to me. If I plant a tree in my yard that’s destined to become a giant, that won’t happen in my lifetime. And the reality is that when we sell this house, it is highly likely that it will get razed and a McMansion will take its place, with the yard becoming something else entirely. So, I decided to plant whatever I want.

For example, the magnificent big leaf maple shown above was probably at least 150 years old before it fell apart. And these trees can live up to 300 years. Garry oaks can live 500 years, and even shorter 30-foot trees can be 200 years old!

Here are some other beautiful big leaf maples from the foggy park. How can I resiste planting one of these?

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Today was a gorgeous autumn day in Seattle, with bright sun after heavy rain yesterday. My bulb order from John Scheepers arrived this week and today was the perfect day to get out and put in a bunch of bulbs.

For my Homegrown National Park, I purchased 200 Camassia quamash bulbs. They arrived in excellent shape–plump and healthy. I put 100 of them among the native grasses and checker mallows in my mini meadow. The other 100 I planted in a dense bunch along the sidewalk. These should put on a great show in that south-facing spot and still allow me to plant annuals or perennials around them as they fade in the summer.

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I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the C. quamash bulbs that I planted in the parking strip have come back strongly two years in a row and set seed this year–I’m hopeful that these new bulbs will take hold, as well, and provide a fit meal for some native pollinators. It feels good to be investing some time and effort into something that will reward us in five or six months.

Walking around Lower Woodland Park, it is incredible to see how many leaves have fallen. And they are wonderfully still there on the ground creating an amazing carpet. How rare is it that we get to see the messy beauty of a million leaves on the ground?

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I was excited to find that Doug Tallamy, the founder of this movement and an amazing advocate for native plant restoration in our neighborhoods has turned Homegrown National Park into a trademarked movement.

You can now find their website by clicking the snapshot below.

Be sure to record your property, or any property you feel responsible for (P-Patch or commercial real estate) on the map page.

I can’t wait to see how Seattle and Washington fare on this map and what it tells me about this neighborhood and how I can help fill gaps in the biodiversity grid around me.

Today was a perfect Seattle autumn day–bright sun and cool temperatures, bright foliage, and a gusty wind. Today I endeavored on the last lawn-mowing of the year, tackling the one patch of lawn that we have left–about 1000 square feet right in front of the house.

First, though, I raked leaves up and spread them all over the native plant garden. In addition, we had some big branches cut from our Douglas fir tree and I spread those around so they covered all the areas of the native plant garden that are currently without plants.

Then, I mowed the lawn for the first time since summer. As I mowed, I was thinking about how we can change our landscaping fashion. How did we land on the fashion of lawns surrounding our homes in the first place and what about them is so appealing to us? And how do we make the change to appreciate vibrant, interesting landscapes filled with native plants and animals over lawn space that is virtually useless to nature?

Here is an article about the lawn subject that I found online.

When I read books about native plant restoration, inevitably the authors write at length about the perceived pressure imposed by neighbors that factors into our inability to change our landscapes to whatever it is that we really want–especially native gardens. I feel somewhat immune to this pressure because I live in a neighborhood where folks have different levels of garden skill and interest and different levels of concern about the neatness of their yards, so there are many yards/gardens that would be considered messy or even trashy. I’d have to work pretty hard at it to have our yard stand out as an example neighbors would find offensive.

One approach for people who are susceptible to peer pressure is to explain to them what your native garden means to you. I put signs up explaining my Homegrown National Park project and now neighbors speak to me about it knowingly and voice their support. I can be unapologetic about the “mess” because that untidiness is the ultimate goal.

Lawns, it seems to me, are not just about status, but are about control–our control over nature. Letting go of that control can be difficult. My garden right now is the tale of two landscapes–one lawn and one native plant garden. And when I looked at them after I finished mowing the lawn today, it seems obvious the most beautiful one, the most interesting one is the native plant garden–the one with brightly colored fallen leaves gamboling in the wind, with evergreen boughs and young shrubs and trees and herbaceous plants. The lawn is a brilliant green, but that’s really it–otherwise, it is dead space. Despite its vibrant color, it provides little shelter or food for anything.

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Meanwhile, look at the glorious tapestry that is the new and very young native plant garde n.

The great news is that we don’t have to give up our lawns entirely, though we do need to start maintaining them in more environmentally friendly ways. If we just replace half of our lawns with native plants, that’s enough to make a HUGE difference to native fauna and sequester loads of carbon. In the end, you can be right AND have a lawn.

We had some big lower limbs trimmed off our big Douglas fir tree last week. I asked to have the trimmings left so I can spread them around the native plant garden below and around this tree and let them decompose right in the garden. In addition, the Norway maple across the street has dropped a bunch of leaves in the street. I plan to move those to the native plant garden. They aren’t native leaves, but they will add nutrients to the soil in that garden and places for decomposers/detritivores to hide and do their work.

I was pondering how smart and uncomplicated nature is while humans have made things very ridiculous and complicated. Specifically, I was focusing on the idea that most natural resources should stay put, not move around. For example, trees have evolved to create their own perfect environment. They grow leaves that use the sun to make food to help the tree grow and reproduce. Then, they drop those leaves which compost into nutrients for the very same trees, at exactly the right time. And while they are performing those processes to ensure their own success, they also impact hundreds or thousands of animals and plants. They create shade. They provide food with their leaves and their bark and their roots, and their seeds. They provide shelter. They sequester carbon. Trees are phenomenal!

The native Douglas asters that I grew this year bloomed well through the late summer and early autumn and set lots of seeds. I pulled a few and will try to germinate them. I left the others, hoping that the birds will find them and also that some will find their way elsewhere in the garden and germinate. We’ll see if that happens. With all the bark on the garden, I’m not sure the seeds will find a friendly place to grow.

Back in late spring I started a batch of Collomia grandiflora seeds. They were placed in the native plant garden in summer, but most of them faded away, probably due to lack of water. However, one of them has done well and now, in early November, has flowers. These are really beautiful native annuals and I will grow them again, but start them earlier. The flowers aren’t open in the photos, but you can get a sense of how the plant grows and the flower color.

Indigenous people of eastern Washington used these plants as a laxative and fever treatment. The leaves have been used to cover berry baskets. I’ll get them started much earlier next year so I can really enjoy their flowers and attract native pollinators.

I’ve been noticing the tension between our cultural landscaping norms and the best practice nature landscaping practices toward which we are all hopefully migrating. For example, Leon asked me the other day, “Is that grass in your garden SUPPOSED to be there?” Because I have planted a bunch of native grasses in the midst of my neat and tidy bark-covered native plant garden. All the sudden, the garden isn’t quite so tidy and that is a cause for concern. Not for me, of course, but likely for anyone who worries about neat and tidy gardens.

It makes sense–we’ve spent generations developing traditional gardening practices, and one of the simple things gardeners have sought to do is remove grass from garden beds. Autumn clean-up is another practice that gardeners have developed and followed. Still clinging to that neat and tidy ethic, gardeners scour the late-season beds and take away everything that has fallen or passed its aesthetic prime with no thought to the plants and animals that might be affected.

One of my favorite podcasts, A Way to Garden hosted by Margaret Roach, featured a Doug Tallamy as a guest this week telling us exactly what we should and shouldn’t do in the fall garden and why.

Please listen to the podcast–you’ll find it HERE. And start thinking about your garden and yard in a new way. If gardening isn’t about what humans want but about what nature needs, it is a lot easier for gardeners to answer questions about why our gardens don’t fit the traditional mold.