For many years when Portland Nursery Association held its annual Yard, Garden and Patio Show, I was a regular attendee. I enjoyed strolling through the sample gardens, talking to growers and designers, and attending the classes that were held each day of the Show. I found some notes a few days ago about a seminar Sean Hogan of Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island gave on native plants and I wanted to share some highlights.
Sean was always one of my favorite YGP Show speakers. He filled the criteria of a knowledgeable and entertaining speaker to a tee. In 2013, the topic of his seminar was “Best in New Natives for Design,” and it was all about using native plants in the garden. While Sean had a lot of photos of wonderful natives, most of his pictures were taken “in the wild.” He goes all around Oregon and the Pacific Northwest to find hybrids of the old standards and then brings back cuttings to propagate in his nursery. Of course, he cautioned about needing permits to be able to do this type of harvesting as fines can be quite steep for anyone caught taking native plants from the wild.
At the time, I didn't have many natives in my garden other than an Oregon grape, ferns, and a couple of red-twigged dogwood, so I was interested in what Sean had to say. His first point was that we may, as gardeners, have to give up on the need to nurture. These hardy plants don’t need our help once they are established. They love our cool, wet winters and our mild, dry summers.
Sean suggested doing the easy things first. Start with a few tried-and-true natives that will add to your garden without overpowering the other plants. But first, before planting new plants, go through your garden and see what you can edit. That way you will have an idea of how much space you need to fill and what conditions – sun or shade, sandy or clay soil, moist or dry areas – are available to the natives. Then find natives to fill just that spot.
And there are lots of natives that do well on the coast! Many of them offer flowers, too, so your garden won’t need to be all foliage plants. Sean’s favorite seemed to be Manzanita (the plant, not the town), but he also mentioned Ceanothus, coast huckleberries, and dwarf coyote bush. All of which have lovely flowers in the spring, summer and winter, respectively.
Dwarf coyote bush in bloom
Sean also pointed out that spring for native plants starts in the fall with the rains. That’s when they are lush, lovely and green. They generally turn brown in the summer, going dormant as the rains end. Some great perennials for the native garden are California poppies, bleeding hearts, penstemons, and blue-eyed grass. One plant we rarely think of using in the home garden is skunk cabbage, but those bright yellow leaves can be very dramatic in a wet, shady spot. That is if you don't mind the scent of skunks in your garden.
The Columbia lily and Pacific coast iris are lovely as is the native Trillium. I have a trillium that has bloomed every year for the past five years, and I consider this a real coup. They don’t really like to be moved and can take up to seven years to settle in and be mature enough to bloom. Wild ginger is also a lovely woodland plant that will do well in the garden. (Sometimes a little too well.)
There are lots of lovely native ferns, too. Sword ferns, maidenhair ferns and deer ferns are easy in cool, shady spots, although I find the sword ferns do just as well in full sun as in shade. Lady ferns are good for shade or morning sun, too, although they can become bullies if let to grow unchecked. I have one that is now getting to be almost 4 feet tall, so I need to cut her back every fall just to keep her in line.
Sean talked about how to get natives through the first, crucial summer. We need to extend the rainy season into June and July by watering the new plantings. But we also need to water when temperatures are cooler (beginning of the day) rather than at noon or in the evening. Ideally, we should plant natives in late October, but mid- to late-February or early March should be okay, too. And most natives don’t like a rich soil, so there is no need to add more than a little compost to poor soils. The exceptions to this rule are the plants that naturally grow on the forest floor where debris from the trees breaks down into nice, rich compost.
You can see why I used to take a notebook with me to the YGP Show each year: who could remember all that long enough to pass it along? I was glad to find my notes from 2013 so I could share them again.
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