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With its spiny evergreen leaves, this drought-resistant, shade-tolerant shrub is a great alternative to the non-native invasive English holly. Both rabbit- and deer-resistant, Oregon grape is useful for borders, containers, and in fire-wise and wildlife gardens. Its bright yellow flowers in spring attract a wide variety of native pollinators, and its blue, grape-like berries in summer are eaten by many types of birds and wildlife. Native Americans dried the berries and used the crushed, dried roots and bark as a dye, and to cure a wide variety of ailments like ulcers, heartburn, rheumatism, kidney problems, and some skin conditions. Learn more about Oregon grape by clicking here.
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While this perennial evergreen shrub is native to our area, it is not as commonly seen due to its range being a bit further south. However, it is now becoming more common in local restoration projects because of our increasingly hotter and dryer climate. Coyote bush is both heat and drought tolerant, and resistant to fire. It blooms between August and December, so also provides an excellent late-season nectar and pollen source for a wide variety of native pollinators. Click here to learn more about coyote bush.
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Also called "Indian plum," osoberry is a wonderful addition to any yard or garden in our area. It is one of our earliest flowering shrubs, and provides much-needed source of nutrition for hummingbirds, native bees and other insects in late winter/early spring. In fact, you can see osoberry buds opening up right now, showing off beautiful lime-green foliage and delicate chains of white flowers. Small oval fruits will emerge later, starting off yellow-gold in late summer and becoming bluish-black in the fall. Learn more about osoberry by reading this Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) fact sheet.
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Not only are the showy cascades of pink flowers beautiful to look at, they provide a source of early spring nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies. This drought tolerant shrub provides forage for the larvae of many moth and butterfly species, and cover for songbirds and small mammals. The berries were eaten raw or dried by the Kalapuya, and can also be used in jams, jellies, pies and syrups. Click here to learn more.
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As beautiful as any imported maple, our native vine maple (Acer circinatum) has multiple slender twisting branches reminiscent of a vining plant. It's wide palm-shaped leaves emerge lime green in the spring, and turn brilliant shade of red, orange and yellow in the fall - depending on how much sun they get. The seeds are favorite foods of birds and other wildlife, and its foliage is a preferred food for deer and elk. Traditional uses by the Kalapuya include weaving the branches for baskets and fish traps, as well as a source of firewood. Click here to read more about vine maple.
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This lovely multi-stemmed shrub likes to grow in wet areas, and in the wild, can be found along stream banks and at the edge of moist woodlands. It is most easily recognized by the brown shredding bark on its branches, which peel off to reveal multiple colorful layers. Right now, the spherical clusters of tiny white flowers are blooming and vivid against the dark green, maple-like lobed leaves. Reddish fruit clusters also make this shrub attractive in the fall. This shrub provides food and shelter for many species of birds, insects and small mammals. Native American uses include making knitting needles and small bows for children. Ninebark is also well suited for streambank restoration because its fibrous roots hold onto the soil and it is easily grown by cuttings. Click here to read more.
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Oceanspray is a tough, drought- and fire-resistant shrub that erupts in beautiful cascades of cream-to-lilac flowers in the summer. It has triangular, roughly toothed leaves which turn yellow to reddish-orange in the fall. While not many wildlife species like to eat oceanspray, it provides good cover for birds, small mammals and amphibians - including the Pacific tree frog. Oceanspray flowers attract butterflies, bees and many species of beneficial insects as well. Also known as "ironwood," oceanspray wood is valued by the Tribes for many tools and utensils - including digging sticks, fishing hooks, needles, canoe paddles, bows, spears, arrow shafts and even as joining pins for construction when nails were scarce! It was made even harder by heating it over a fire and polishing it with horsetail stems. Learn more about oceanspray by clicking here.
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Also called rose spirea, hardhack or steeplebush, Douglas spirea is a beautiful native shrub that grows fast and lives a long time. Spirea tolerates a wide variety of site conditions – from full sun to part-shade, and from consistently water-logged to only seasonally wet soils. Its cotton-candy-like clusters of pink-purple flowers bloom from June through September, attracting hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinators. In the autumn, brown seed pods remain on the stalks after the leaves have fallen, which provide a nutritious food source for native wildlife. Spirea can form dense thickets, which provide shelter for small mammals and nesting sites for birds. Native Americans used Douglas spirea to hang salmon for drying and cooking, and for making tools to collect dentalia shells. Click here to learn more about Douglas spirea.
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Manzanitas (Arctostaphylos spp.) are a large group of drought-resistant, evergreen shrubs that contains a wide variety of species and cultivars and can be found throughout the western United States. There are 11 distinct species of Manzanita native to Oregon, with two being native to our watershed area – Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) and Hairy Manzanita (Arctostaphylos columbiana). Both species can be found in dry, open, sunny places and rocky hillsides, often in disturbed areas. In yards and gardens, manzanitas grow best in acidic, well-drained soils, and thrive with neglect. In fact, summer irrigation and fertilizers can cause young manzanita to do poorly – even killing them! In addition to being very low maintenance, manzanitas provide a source of nectar for a wide variety of pollinators, and many types of birds and mammals eat the berries and use the evergreen foliage for cover throughout the year. Manzanita has many uses for people too. In fact, the word ‘kinnikinnick’ is derived from an Algonquin word that refers to a mixture of leaves for smoking. Native Americans ate the berries of both manzanitas, and used the leaves of Hairy Manzanita to make a yellowish-brown dye, and used its hard wood for making small tools. You can learn more about Hairy Manzanita at the Native Plants PNW website, and if you want to learn more about both of Oregon's manzanita species, head to Pacific Horticulture's website.
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While we typically feature trees and shrubs in this monthly post, we would be remiss in not including one of the BEST additions you can make to a pollinator-friendly habitat in your own garden or backyard! Globe gilia is an easy-to-grow annual that produces many small flowers in dense ball-like clusters. The architecture of the gilia flowers makes it easy for insects to land and move from flower to flower, and provides easy access to pollen and nectar for a wide variety of pollinator species – including bees, butterflies, moths and hummingbirds. The seeds of this wildflower have also been used by the Payómkawichum (Luiseño) Indians of California as a food source. Right now happens to be the perfect time of year to sow gilia seeds, which can thrive in many different soil types, though it prefers well-drained, sunny locations. FUN FACT: Although we think of pollen as yellow or orange in color, Gilia pollen happens to be blue! For more information about Globe gilia, visit Oregon State University’s Garden Ecology center webpage.
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Native Bunchgrasses are the November Native Plants of the Month! Did you know that there are no stoloniferous grasses (grasses that spread by runners) that are native to the Willamette Valley? When we think of adding plants to our yards, native grasses may not immediately come to mind. Yet these often overlooked and undervalued plants can bring enormous benefit to the landscape. Unlike the non-native stoloniferous turf and forage grasses that dominate so much of our non-forested lands today, bunchgrasses do not grow in a continuous mat to cover every inch of bare soil. Native bunchgrasses, like Roemer’s fescue (Festuca roemeri), prairie Junegrass (Koeleria macrantha) and tufted hairgrass (Deschampsia caespetosa), grow more slowly, stay relatively short, and form clumps instead of mats, leaving plenty of space and resources for native wildflowers, shrubs and young trees to take root and grow alongside them. Prior to Euro-American settlement, bunchgrasses and wildflowers formed the understory within oak savannahs and prairies, and were regularly maintained by Indigenous burning practices. Today, these iconic ecosystems are among the most endangered in the Willamette Valley. If you would like to learn more about native bunchgrass and wildflower meadows, and how to establish them on your land, visit https://wmswcd.org/projects/the-meadowscaping-handbook/
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If you are interested in adding high-value wildlife habitat to your land, you should definitely consider adding snowberry to your plant list. This medium-sized shrub can grow in the sun or shade and tolerates a wide variety of soil types, though it grows best in heavy clay soils. Tiny pink flowers emerge in the spring, which turn into snow-white berries that persist through the fall and early months of winter. Snowberry is an important source of food and shelter for many species of birds, mammals, and insects – including the Vashti sphynx moth (Sphinx vashti), whose larvae exclusively eat snowberry leaves. Native American cultures throughout the Northwest used this plant in a variety of ways, including using the branches to make brooms and the twigs to make pipe-stems. Although the berries are generally considered unpalatable to humans, very small quantities were consumed to relieve indigestion and berries can also be rubbed on the skin to treat burns, rashes and sores. Teas and infusions made of the berries, roots and stems also have a wide range of medicinal uses. Learn more about snowberry at https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/factsheet/pdf/fs_syal.pdf.
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