habitat garden vol. 1: early spring
common yarrow
manzanita
bigleaf lupine
diamond clarkia
fringe cups and snowberry
douglas aster & western bleeding heart
common yarrow & farewell-to-spring
common camas (blooming) & great camas
douglas spirea
woodland strawberry
felis catus (invasive)
red elderberry
western clematis or blue virgin's bower
pacific dogwood
dodecatheon or shooting star
if nothing's eating your garden, it's not part of the ecosystem.
Spring comes very slowly, then all at once. In the week since I took these photos, some of these plants have doubled in size, the shrubs and trees are partly or fully leafed out, the later bulbs have started putting up their flower spikes. Photos of fully-blooming oregon iris tenax, elderberry, and fringe cups are soon forthcoming - we already have our first iris blossom and it's as stunning as ever. Every one of these beautiful plants is native to our corner of western Oregon1.
Not pictured (yet): pearly everlasting, self-heal, goldenrod, showy and narrow-leafed milkweed, non-dried-out douglas and hall's aster, rosy and henderson's checkermallow, vine maple, california poppies, salal, blueblossom....
Important reminder: Spring tidying is for losers!
Don't cut down last year's stems or remove dried foliage. Later in the season I'll trim back the tallest stems to about 15", but those hollow stems are where solitary bees and other important insects will make their home next winter. The trimmed parts I'll "chop & drop" - leave them spread around the plants as natural mulch to suppress weeds, provide havens for caterpillars & bugs, and feed the next generation of plants.
Right now our garden work mostly consists of weeding. We yank all flatweed and hairy bittercress with prejudice, pull dandelions & daisies out of the flowerbeds (but leave them in the lawn), and thin out volunteer natives like willowherb and wild geranium2 as I so desire.3
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fujifilm x20
film simulation: astia
aperture priority, f2.8
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technically our blueblossom ceanothus (aka wild lilac) might be ever so slightly out of its natural range - per oregon flora and iNaturalist it's generally not seen in the wild north of douglas county (two counties south). if it ever makes it this far up on its own, it's rare. as far as I know, absolutely everything else naturally occurs right here.↩
not shiny geranium, which we would pull out and burn with fire (bag and send to the landfill) if discovered. wild geranium is a friend, shiny geranium (in north america) is evil.↩
I've also decided this year that I need to go nuclear on the geum. I planted one (1) years ago and left to its own devices it would form a monocrop on the entire property. I've tried thinning, I've tried religiously deadheading to stop it going to seed, there's just nothing to it except to start digging it out anywhere I see it. RIP geum you weren't that cute anyway.↩