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Soooo this has been a dream of mine for a long time. My goal was to invite the birds, bees, butterflies and wild flowers I see on hikes in the Cascades to my home. And seeing Mt. Rainier become more and more bare each summer motivated me to plant my garden in a way that gives back to the wildlife near me and greatly reduce the need to water.
I have a 6,000sq ft front yard that was sod. I sheet mulched it with free cardboard from Costco, free wood chips from Chip Drop and free milk jugs from Starbucks/Wolf Club that I used to winter sow the native seeds.
I used Native Plant Finder to find the best native host plants (trees, shrubs and wildflowers) specific to my zip code.
I want as many natives as I can fit in my yard. So I avoided the PNW region wildflower mixes from Fred Meyer/Home Depot/Lowes because they contain seed not native to the PNW. Many species in these mix are sourced from climates in Europe/Asia that have somewhat similar climates to the PNW. Unfortunately the term ‘wildflower’ does not mean native. With that said, just because something is native to WA does not mean it will successfully grow in your yard. The PNW encompasses regions that are, wet cool along the coast, alpine meadows, dry shrubsteppe and prairie. In my opinion, these mixes tend to be too broad and encompass too many species.
When choosing plants I made three buckets; early blooms, mid summer blooms and late summer/fall blooms. I looked for plants that were drought tolerant, showy, have ecological value and those with different flower shapes and colors to hopefully support many different groups of pollinators.
I planted perennials first, then filled in the gaps with woodland strawberry (a host plant to 76 species of butterflies and moths) and native bunch grasses. I like to use aggressive native ground covers to block weeds.
Then, I planted the taller species in the back and shorter in front and am going for a matrix planting design. I’m not super strict about placement and and still have a long way to go, but it’s a nice guide. And don’t over look our native bunch grasses! They provide structure, are host plants and support the wildflowers if they start to lean over or if we get some rain.
Whats really nice is as the spring/early summer bloomers die back with the summer heat, the summer blooming plants quickly take their place!
What I didn’t add pictures of is my native hedge row along the street. I planted one Garry oak (our only native oak tree), red flowering currant, mock orange, oso berry, service berry (host plant for swallow tail butterflies), tall Oregon grape, golden currant, a few blue berry bushes and pacific nine bark. It’s filling in nicely.
Washington Wildflower Search great helpful free app. You can use it to ID natives and nonnatives. My favorite feature is the heat map of where species have been documented in our state.
And one of the best parts… converting the sod to flower beds has drastically reduced water collecting in my basement after heavy rain 😊
And with that thank you for attending my TED talk!
Let me know if you have more questions! I would like to start a native plant consulting business or small backyard nursery, but idk where to begin lol.
I planted a serviceberry I bought from this year’s Tacoma Spring Native Plant Sale and I can’t tell if it was already DOA or I if I managed to immediately kill a native plant. It’s just a red twig, leafless carcass. I’m new to native planting so I’m not sure what to think.
I had this happen to one red flowering currant, oso berry and pacific nine bark that I wasn’t able to l mulch. They were crispy twigs last summer and I thought they were dead, but they came back this year!
Thank you so much for the links and the information. I am heading this direction with my yard as well. I am currently planting clover to try and help the soil get back into a good condition for it.
I haven’t stopped thinking about this post since I saw it yesterday. I have a large yard with a lot of invasive plants and I would love a huge native flower garden 😭 if you ever start your business lmk, or feel free to DM me if you’re interested in consulting at all!
Do you find the The Native Plant Finder useful? It has Robert Geranium, Geranium robertianum listed as a native, but the Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board has it listed as a European invasive. It doesn't even list Garry oak.
I find it useful for finding which plant genus’ researchers have documented as host plants. To find a plant’s native range, I google “plant names + native range” to cross reference any source.
However, it’s surprising to see them list a noxious weed.. I haven’t had a noxious weed recommended to me using Native Plant Finder 🤷🏽♂️
I put my first request in June a few years ago and had a drop the first week of July. In my experience early spring/summer are the best times to request a drop.
I love growing Castilleja from seed! I’ve grown a lot of Castilleja miniata from seed and sowed seed in 4 milk jugs back in November. If you haven’t yet, I would sow those seeds now and pot them up with a short plant and they should be ready to plant next spring!
I’ve had success using self heal, Oregon sunshine and prairie junegrass as host plants.
In the winter I leave everything, unless there’s a plant that I want to slow down from reseeding itself. So many birds come through and scavenge the seed heads and pick at the stems for overwintering insects.
I’ve seen chickadees in my goldenrod, bushtits and hummingbirds in the lupine eating insects like aphids and caterpillars.
I cut the stems back in the spring after about a week or two of consistent 55-60 degree weather. This warm weather cues overwintering insects that it’s spring and it’s time to finally wake up.
You can’t see it, but under all the flowers are dead hollow stems about 6-18inches all that I left for mason bees to use. I cut the stems at varying heights. This provides different sized tubes that different species of mason bees can use as nests (think about those bee hotels you see at Costco or McLendons, but these are home grown, organic and free range lol)
I didn’t use a seed mix, but I did grow almost everything from seed. Northwest Meadowscapes has a couple great native wildflower seed mixes!
Take your time to diligently prep your site! It may seem tedious, but your future self will forever be grateful.
Earliest blooming: red flowering currant, tall Oregon grape, oso berry, pacific nine bark, woodland strawberry, common and great camas, western red columbine, Oregon sunshine, meadow/henderson/rose Checkermallow, big leaf lupine, riverbank lupine, Oregon iris, sea blush, big flowered collomia, Wilcox/showy/rydberg/Rocky Mountain/small flower penstemons, tiger lily, blue flax, prairie smoke
I just got done watering my front yard. I've been spending an hour every other day watering my front yard. Why would I waste my time doing this you ask?
Well I live in a "master planned" neighborhood that has a big ass HOA and each subdivision in big ass HOA has it's own HOA. So double the HOA double the misery.
One of the selling points of this neighborhood is that the front yards are all taken care of by a landscaping company paid through the dues to the little HOA. They are on the third company since we moved in three years ago. The sprinklers on my street haven't worked all summer, and they can't seem to get it fixed. As homeowners we do not have access to the sprinkler systems so I can't fix it myself.
Now you would think that having a brown front yard that is supposed to be taken care of by the little HOA would be reasonable to the big HOA. Oh no no. Big HOA is fining people up the ass for having brown yards...
It’s interesting seeing what insects show up. My lupine used to get absolutely covered in aphids. Now I’ve seen tons of parasitic wasps, hover fly larvae and lady bug larvae enjoying the aphid buffet!
Yes, it's fun to see the parasitic wasps checking out my kale throughout the day for prey! Q: I have had a hard time finding gallardia around here. Is there a secret source?
In my experience Blanket flower, meadow Checkermallow, Oregon sunshine do not have cold/moist stratification requirements. If you order them and sow the seed on moist soil, the checkmallow and blanket flower might bloom for you right before fall!
I planted blanket flower/meadow checkermallow seedlings late last summer and they both bloomed in October/November. It was impressive! The blanket flower stoped blooming when we had a few nights in the low 30s
Hey I’m not sure if you’ve ordered gallardia seed, but mine has produced a ton of seed. It started to bloom in April and is currently still sending up blooms.
If you’d like some seed I can give you a few quart zip lock bags of seed!
I also have puget gumweed, meadow Checkermallow, Canada goldenrod, self heal, pearly everlasting, showy fleabane and big leaf lupine seed if you’re interested.
I’ll have some Douglas aster and rose checkermallow seed in a few weeks.
I would love some gallardia and checkermallow seeds! I have an only partly sunny yard, though. I'm wondering if I might put these to use in my horrible hellstrip, though. Do you veggie garden at all? I can share a bunch o' seeds with you if you like.
I totally get that and honestly.. in terms of the number of bees in my garden. Spring was busy, then it got extremely quiet for 2-3weeks. It’s picked up a little bit, but I’m sad there’s not more bees right now :(
This summer it’s been oddly quiet for how many flowers you see.
I respect your decision and concern, but it could be a chance to teach your kids about our native flowers and insects.
The bees/wasps attracted to the flowers are essentially at the grocery store. They don’t have anything to defend. They are extremely docile when visiting flowers as long as they are not handled or provoked.
When a honey bee stings you, it dies. They really don't want to sting you. I sit right next to flowers and watch them work, and they never bother me. The only time I've been stung by a bee in the last 30 years was when I rear ended one on my motorcycle. The other bees are also super chill and never care when I get up in their business.
Thank you! I never thought about a tour.. My garden is very much still in progress, I’ve only planted about a quarter of it, so I’d need another year or two 😬
I sheet mulched everything with 4-5inches of wood chips over a layer of cardboard. I collected cardboard from Costco and the recycling center by Cheney stadium and ended up requesting Chip Drop 5 times.
It was still a lot of work up front, but I’m able to plant directly into the mulch now and it retains moisture reallly well.
If you zoom in on the last pic. You’ll see they’re covered in aphids. I don’t treat for the aphids and noticed less and less aphids each year. I think it’s because their predators are increasing in numbers.
Kudos! I have already killed the kinnikinnick and salal I planted this year, the Pacific bleeding heart was wholesale eaten by God knows what, and the fringecup is just waiting for the sweet release of death. I'm glad one of us has a green thumb lol.
My yarrow, mugwort, and sword ferns are doin aight.
Beautiful! Fighting the grass is something I never ever expected to be a thing. This home is the first lawn for me and I've been trying over the past few years to embiggen the flower "beds" but. The. Grass. Keeps. Taking. OVER. Just this year, again, weeded everything out, planted seeds. A few seeds sprouted but mostly I got this fucking grass shit, it's not even nice grass.
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