When walking past the native garden after a long day of work I spotted a gorgeous little flower! This plant was started from seed this spring, so it has been quick to bloom. It is Jacob’s ladder, Polemonium pulcherrimum. The plant is too small to be showy, but the individual flowers are spectacular!
I previously posted some of the beautiful flora from Lower Woodland Park, but this time it was a silent hunter that grabbed my attention. This was my first ever sighting of a barred owl! It may have been a juvenile–it was pretty tame and let me get close enough with my cell phone to snap these pics! How amazing that an owl (and maybe a breeding pair) live less than five miles from my house! I hope our neighborhood will host more fantastic birds like this.
Barred owls are one of those rare animals that are extending their range–they never used to be here. They started as an eastern-based species, but spread west in the Canada and now they are spreading along the west coast. This appears to be a natural dispersal–not due to any human introduction, but likely related to the impacts of humans on the weather, environment, and other species.
The NextDoor gift certificate giveaway for Seattle Native Plants Nursery continues to find native plant enthusiasts and those who are willing to try natives for the first time. In addition to the 24 certificates of $25 and $50 already issued to neighbors and friends, there are 16 people now on the waitlist to receive $25 certificates in early August! If an average plant from the nursery costs $7.00, that means 228 new native trees, shrubs, and perennials will get planted in our neighborhoods! What a great start to our Homegrown National Park, North Seattle edition!
The seedlings I so carefully planted last week, pots and all, in my clever attempt to save shelf space for my propagating efforts, has attracted some fauna. Likely a raccoon has been digging up the pots and turning out all the seedlings. I can’t be sure as to why, but there might be worms around because I’ve been watering the seedlings once in a while. Whatever creature is digging them up just grabs a couple of the pots each night and leaves them lying empty on their sides where once there was a precious seedling. So, when I say, “If you plant it, they will come,” I imagine there will be other surprising ways this manifests–I certainly wasn’t expecting raccoons to dig up my potted seedlings. Good to know the bandits are around, though.
Years ago, one of my first attempts to go native was to nurture a little cherry seedling that popped up in our yard. It turned out to be a native bitter cherry, Prunus emarginata. I had read that it would top out around 20 feet, so we planted it next to the driveway. I had read an inaccurate article because P. emarginata do not stop growing at 20 feet. So, it climbed up to 35 feet and appeared to want to keep growing. Later, I read that they grow to 45 feet tall and are not long-lived and tend to topple easily in storms–not the perfect tree to have next to the driveway where vehicles are parked. I have seen these trees in natural areas and they seem much taller and bigger than online sources suggest.
Chunky bitter cherry trunks in a natural area by Twin Ponds in Shoreline. The biggest trunk is about 18″ across.
Our bitter cherry tree was already suckering rambunctiously throughout our yard, including under the driveway and coming up on the other side! It was beautiful, though, with cinnamon bark and bright, healthy foliage, with noticeable white spring flowers. I never saw cherries on our tree–maybe the birds got them all. We decided it had to go to prevent more suckers and a tree on top of our house, our car, or our trailer. So, we paid a guy to cut the tree down and we kept the wood and took it up to our cabin for firewood.
Now that I have read a lot more about growing natives, I discovered that I can keep trees like this small and they will still benefit wildlife. And lucky for me, there are still a bunch of suckers from that first tree around the garden. I let them grow a bit and then prune them off so they become low, leafy shrubs.
One of my bitter cherry suckers, cut down to about five feet tall. These trees can grow ten feet in a year if given a chance.
I haven’t seen a lot of food web activity on these plants, but I’m optimistic that keeping them around is making a difference.
As I worked around the garden this weekend, I noticed two Western tiger swallowtail butterflies, at least three cabbage white butterflies, and this giant beauty, an eight spotted skimmer dragonfly that landed near the front porch and patiently allowed me to get close enough for some photos.
I find inspiration in most gardening books, but especially in those dedicated to native plants. Barbara Eisenstein’s “Wild Suburbia: Learning to Garden with Native Plants” has some gems right in the first few chapters. The book is specifically about California natives, but much of the advice is applicable anywhere.
When talking about the “why” of native gardening, Eisenstein says, “Since nearly all of our wildlands have been impacted by development, we can no longer ignore the habitat value of our own back yards if we wish to preserve other wildlife species, as well as the general health of the planet.” I would add front yards to this assessment.
One of her nine reasons to plant natives is: “Feel good about being part of the solution. The environmental forecast is not good, but it feels great to know you can do something about it. One little garden may not matter much, but you can help the movement catch on so it spreads from yard to yard.” We don’t really know how much one little garden might matter in the end. It might make all the difference.
She also describes three ways for gardeners to start their relationship with native plants, a conservative, plant-at-a-time approach, an all-in, redo your whole yard approach, and the in-between approach, the one she obviously prefers, where gardeners choose appropriate areas of their yards to devote to native plants. I’m doing both the tuck-a-plant method and the native-devoted-area method in my yard.
Another excellent point the makes regarding soils is that native plants are generally accustomed to the soils in the areas in which they evolved, so there is very little need to fertilize or amend the soil at all.
In the past few days I have wandered through Upper Woodland Park near Green Lake here in Seattle a few times. The park is not pristine wilderness by any stretch, but there are some nice native trees inside.
Native yew, Taxus brevifolia
Bigleaf Maple, Acer macrophyllum
Leaves that are part of the food web are perfectly imperfect.
Three major Seattle trees showing their distinctive trunks, left to right, Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata), Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)
For people with large enough yards, these trees can make a remarkable woodland. All around my neighborhood in Seattle, large Douglas fir trees soar above the houses–most about 70 years old, including one in my yard. This tree was one of the major reasons I wanted this house 25 years ago. There are fewer Western Red Cedar trees and Bigleaf Maples around, but these trees seed themselves in my yard regularly.
I don’t have room for full-grown versions of these trees, but from a food web standpoint, Doug Tallamy tells us that you don’t need adult trees to provide food for the insects that feed on these plants. For example, in my own garden, I have two seedling Bigleaf maples that I keep pruned to less than ten feet tall. I prune them several times a year to keep foliage coming. I take a similar approach with Bitter Cherry (Prunus emarginata).
One of my favorite native wildflowers is Fireweed, or Great Willow Herb (Chamaenerion angustifolium). I purchased seeds to start this year but not one of them germinated. Meanwhile, in the deserted Sam’s Club parking lot up the street from us, dozens of these plants have sprung up in cracks and planting beds. That’s good news–they will set seeds that I can scatter around my garden and in some pots to get my own started.
Last week, I made a sign to offer gift certificates to anyone who walked by the garden and texted me. No one did. It seemed simple enough, but maybe 1) people don’t want to text a stranger and/or 2) they aren’t as excited about native plants as I think they should!
Feeling dejected and sad, I thought I’d try Nextdoor. So I posted a Free Native Plants post and almost immediately I got a response! And then another! And within two days, I had over two dozen requests for certificates! I’m so excited by this response and the kind, excited responses from neighbors who are looking to improve their communities with native plants. I was worried that my mission wasn’t relevant to people, but it turns out a lot of amazing folks have already planted natives and many others want to start now.
The realization that several of the native plant species I started this year are actually annuals, not the perennials I had assumed, forced me to get those plants out into the native plant garden today. I planted out seven Collomia grandiflora seedlings and seven Lupinus bicolor seedlings. I’m hopeful that with some warmer weather and maybe some supplemental watering, they can get to blooming size by the end of summer.
Seedlings planted today nearest the bricks: Lupinus bicolor to the left, Collomia grandiflora to the right.
Closer view of my precious seedlings.
Lupinus bicolor is very delicate looking.
I’m trying to create a baseline of insects and other fauna that come to our yard this year. We had two nests full of Juncos hatch out in the garden, one batch of black-capped chickadees, and I’m seeing a lot of native bees and insects, including sweat bees, bumblebees, a yellow underwing moth, geometer moth, and a plume moth that arrived today near our front door.
The resilience of nature is awe-inspiring. These animals are out there just waiting for humans to give them a chance to thrive!
This morning seemed perfect for taking cuttings. There was a lot of rain yesterday and this morning and it was still cool and shady. I prepped about nine pots with sandy compost. I took six cuttings of red flowered currant (Ribes sanguinea), eight of red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), three of thimble berry (Rubus parviflorus) , and four of salmon berry (Rubus spectabilis). I trimmed them up and potted them right away, then set them in a bin with some water so it could wick up and wet the soil as well as keep the humidity up.
To promote more native plants finding their way into our neighborhood, we put a sign up that allows folks to text me their name and get a $25 Seattle Native Plants gift certificate texted back to them digitally. I’m hoping this will generate both interest in native plants and sales for SNP.
I’m also working on an ongoing plant sale shelf to place near the sidewalk. It will be an honor system sale where I put my extra plants and neighbors can take them–not just natives, but ornamentals and house plants, too. I’ll let people Venmo or Paypal the money to me–suggested at $5 per plant at smaller sizes, with the proceeds going to purchase more gift certificates.
It has been a couple of years since I grew this many seedlings and I forgot how much work it can be. Last weekend, I potted a bunch more into larger pots. I expect in about six weeks, some of them will be ready to plant out into the garden and others ready to sell or give to neighbors.
This time, the seedlings were native blue ryegrass, Elymus glaucus, and rose checker mallow, Sidalcea hendersonii. There were over 40 of the grass seedlings and about 20 of the checker mallows.
It was a classic spring day in Seattle, with heavy rain showers in between sun breaks. I worked most of the day getting the greenhouse organized. In the afternoon I switched to transplanting native seedlings. There were hundreds of Mimulus guttatus seedlings despite my attempts at sparsely sprinkling the pot with the minute seeds. I planted them in bunches–ended up with about a dozen pots. In addition, there were dozens of Achillea millefolium seedlings. I transplanted a few into individual pots and the rest three-to-a-pot.
Assuming these all survive, I’m not sure where they’ll end up. Mimulus love water and the new garden is pretty dry, so I may have to plant them elsewhere. The yarrows will happily live anywhere with part to full sun, so I’ll sprinkle them around the native plant garden and the memory garden and give any extras away.
Not long after these were transplanted, the REAL rain came. Here is what it looked/sounded like for about half an hour this evening:
I’m hoping the rain doesn’t wipe out the newly transplanted seedlings!
Two Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum) seedlings had filled their 4″ pots so I took a chance and planted them out in our Homegrown National Park. They are small, so I had to peel back quite a bit of bark mulch. They look tiny and sad out in that big garden, but I’m hopeful the wet spring will help get them off to a strong start.
I pricked out the Collomia grandiflora seedlings today and the Lupinus bicolor seedlings. There are about twenty Collomias and eight Lupinus, now all in 3-1/2″ round pots. The Collomias had really strong root systems. Here’s what they looked like before transplanting.
The checker mallow seedlings are looking pretty good, as well, but not ready for moving on yet.
Yesterday, I saw my first Western Swallowtail butterfly. It flew through the yard and around the garden in the parking strip before flying on. Today, I saw what I believe was a Red Admiral butterfly. In addition, I saw a bunch of metallic green sweat bees on my Santa Barbara daily plants in one of my gardens near the Homegrown National Park. These are rare sightings for me right now, but I know when this park project takes off, we’ll all be seeing more of these native beauties.
At my favorite local native plant source, Seattle Native Plants, owner Mark Tomkiewicz has worked with me to get gift certificates available so I can start promoting native plants more easily with friends and neighbors. I’m going to send out some books and certificates this weekend. And now I can plan a promotional program here in the neighborhood to motivate folks to start planting more natives. Mark is a pleasure to work with–several of my friends have worked with him and had the same experience–he is generous and the plants are boisterous and healthy, and the value is excellent.
Anyone in/near Seattle/Shoreline reading this blog who has an interest in a gift certificate, please email me at tony.joe@comcast.net and I’ll put you on the list for some free native plants.
There is a 2020 video from Doug Tallamy on YouTube now that talks about the main points in his latest book, “Nature’s Best Hope.” You can find it HERE. His slides are full of photos of dozens of interesting caterpillars people in his part of the world can attract with their native plantings.
I’m in a bug group on Facebook (Pacific Northwest Bugs) and the members take amazing photos. I decided to get a macro lens for my phone and see if I can start documenting the bugs in my garden. Here are a couple of my early attempts:
The moth photo isn’t great, but it was good enough for me to identify the creature as a Toothed Brown Carpet Moth.
The aphids would scare a traditional gardener and a chemical response would likely ensue, but I was excited to see them because I know they will attract natural predators that will bring balance back to my rose shrub. If not this year, then next. The rose will bloom, anyway–maybe not perfectly, but if Doug Tallamy has taught us anything, it is that perfection isn’t a natural state for plants. Plants that are being eaten by native insects is the goal!
I checked on the plants this evening that were planted in our Homegrown National Park and they appear to be growing well. The maidenhair fern might be getting too much sun but it still looks alright.
I think of Dicentra as ephemerals, but they actually bloom a lot longer than most plants of that type. Mine still have a few fresh flowers.
How exciting to see the leaves on one of the thimbleberries eaten by some bug or other! They are adding to the food web.
People worry about insect “damage” but this is the whole point of a native garden for me. In a well-balanced garden, the plants won’t be overwhelmed by insects.
My camas (Camassia quamash) plants have seed pods forming. I need to research what conditions these plants need for their seeds to germinate. The packet of seeds I planted hasn’t germinated, so if my own plants have fresh seeds, maybe I can have more success with those.
Here are the Collomia grandiflora seedlings, growing quickly and well:
And below are the Lupinus bicolor seedlings, also growing well:
My Nootka rose in the memory garden/parking strip is spreading quickly via rhizomes. My first thought was to cut these suckers off. I realize now that they are free plants–I can separate them and add them to the native plant garden and also share some with neighbors.
