A Rant about Native Plants By Larry the Garden Geezer
In the Great Northwest we are blessed with a great many beautiful native plants.In all the spare time I had before I had a nursery to support, Bethany and I spent a lot of pleasant time exploring Northwest woods and mountains looking for plants armed only with a shovel and a permit from the U.S. Forest Service.
In the wild, many native plants are abundant and some are very rare.It goes without saying (but I will anyway) that rare plants should be left alone in the wild.Usually their growing conditions are so specific that they would fail in your garden anyway.Otherwise, they would not be rare!There are specialty nurseries that offer nursery grown rare plants from nursery grown seed.They should be your source for rare plants rather than collecting them in the wild.Such nurseries can also provide growing information for these picky plants.For the more abundant plants, personal use permits can be obtained from local U.S. Forest Service Offices.Collecting in the fall after early frosts has worked best for me.
There is a growing interest in landscaping with native plants because of their supposed adaptation to local conditions.I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, but my experience with native plant gardening suggests that some like it in my garden and some don’t.What follows is a discussion of some of my successes with natives.As you might expect, I quickly gloss over my failures!
To read more about NW Natives click on the link to the far right.
