I celebrated my birthday on the coast last weekend. I won’t tell you how old I am.  But to much family delight and canine terror, the conflagration on the birthday cake set off all three smoke alarms.  Really.

I wanted to go to the ocean to walk on the beach in the wind and rain; that sounded soul-satisfying. And it was.  Walking with my kids and running with my son’s dog was fun.  Feeling the sand under my boots, standing with seagulls, studying the muddy breakers and the infinite horizon both stirred and soothed.  Tiny springtails congregated in purple patches on the surface of the streams draining out of the hillside.  They speckled the sand among the Coastal Strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) and Pacific Silverweed (Argentina egedii) twining their way over the dunes.

And the real find: carcasses of Chinook salmon strewn on the beach. They must have spawned in one of the rivers flanking this beach—the Moclips or the Copalis—then died and washed down to the ocean.  They were eaten down to their skeletons; only their heads and tails were still whole.  Just that sight—fish bones on a beach—tells such a fundamental story about life and birth, purpose and death.  Appropriate for a birthday weekend.  Made us hum a few bars of “The Circle of Life”.

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The weather forecast yesterday said “showers” but I only saw a couple of half-hearted spatters, not even worth putting on a hat. Someone told me Tuesday they’d had enough of the dryness.  “Bring on the rain!” he said.  Spoken like a true native!  Sounds like his tolerance to drought has reached its limit.

Drought-tolerant plants are being put through their paces right now. The bit of rain we got last night hardly even counts.  Our summers (and it is still technically summer) are very dry, despite western Washington’s reputation for rain.  Our native plants are adapted to our wet winters and dry summers.  Most of our natives, unless they are strictly wetland plants, are drought-tolerant to a certain extent, but as for those that thrive in the most exposed locations, with very well-drained sandy soils, the selection is much smaller.  Among those are three shrubs:  Mock Orange (Philadelphus lewisii), Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) and Tall Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium).

Mock Orange (Philadelphus lewisii) is a deciduous shrub with fantastic-smelling white mid-summer flowers. Swallowtails and other butterflies appreciate the flowers’ nectar and birds eat the seeds.  It grows quickly, and grows fairly wide, getting up to10 feet tall. Its vigorous root system will help stabilize soil on a slope.

Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) is also deciduous, with interesting scalloped leaves, twiggy branches that provide excellent cover for songbirds, and striking cream-colored flower clusters.  They bloom in late May and June (perfect timing to be used for a bridal bouquet) and the hundreds of tiny flowers that make up each graceful, drooping oblong cluster attract many tiny pollinators and other insects.  The seed clusters remain throughout the winter, another factor good for bird habitat.  Ocean Spray gets up to15 feet tall and nearly as wide.  It does just fine where it is subjected to salt spray (like its name).

Tall Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium) also does well by salt water.  Its attractive, shiny evergreen leaves are prickly like holly.  New growth is bronzey-colored.  Yellow flowers in early spring provide nectar to bees, butterflies and hummingbirds and the pretty blue berry clusters feed a variety of birds, small mammals and large mammals, including Homo sapiens and Sasquatch. Its vertical stems max out at 6 to 8 feet tall.  It is rhizomatous, so will slowly spread to form a patch. This gives it good soil-holding capacity, even on Puget Sound bluffs.  Tall Oregon Grape is Oregon’s state flower!

All three of these will do well in harsh, exposed conditions with hot sun and fast-draining soil, once their roots have a few seasons to grow deep for moisture. They don’t require those conditions, however, and will do fine with some moisture in the soil or in partial shade.  The three combined would make for a beautiful, bird-friendly hedgerow.

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Every summer, the mountains call me; I have to get in some “mountain time” to make my summer complete.  So – hooray! – I just spent three days and two nights backpacking in the Goat Rocks Wilderness near White Pass.  A refreshing swim in clear, cold Surprise Lake and staring into the oh-so-starry heavens at night were the crowning experiences.  The sweat and slog have their payoffs!

And of course I enjoyed the mountain plants.  Most of the flowers are done for the season, but there was one in particular that caught my eye that is still happily blooming away: Foamflower (Tiarella trifoliata).  It is still in bloom here in the lowlands at Tadpole Haven as well.  The leaves of the lowland western Washington plant have three separate leaflets while the high-elevation form of Foamflower (var.unifoliata) simply has a single leaf with three lobes.

This shade-loving perennial wildflower looks especially nice when you’ve got a whole patch of them. Their small plumes lift up to two feet tall above the low-growing foliage and look like sea-foam (especially if you get on your knees, squint, and think about the Little Mermaid).  But if you have just returned from star-gazing in the mountains, their delicate star-like white flowers remind you of the night sky’s beauty.  They will still be blooming into fall, though less profusely.

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NATIVE FLORA: COOL PLANTS THAT DESERVE SOME R-E-S-P-E-C-T
By Shirley Doolittle Egerdahl

Finally, native plants gain some respect! Even the Rodney Dangerfield of local plants, the Stinging Nettle, is becoming well-known as valuable butterfly habitat.

We need to keep encouraging our neighbors to plant native plants in order to protect our water quality and our fish. Just a basic review of reasons here (at the risk of haranguing):
1) Native plants conserve water. Once established in appropriate locations they need no watering, because they are adapted to our droughty summers.
2) They are also adapted to soil and climate conditions here and thus require less fertilizer and pest control than many imported ornamentals. This keeps excess nitrogen and toxins out of the surface and ground water.
3) They provide habitat for wildlife, including salmon and other fish. For example, insects (which salmon eat) find homes in the native plants they evolved with. And shadows cast by streamside plants cool the creek for salmon fry.
4) Our native plants really look beautiful, and make Western Washington the green place we love.

But you probably knew all that already. Let’s get to the fun stuff – some plants you and your neighbors can cultivate in your own gardens.

SPINY WOOD FERN (Dryopteris expansa)
and LADY FERN (Athyrium filix-femina)
Spiny Wood Fern has nothing “spiny” about it. Perhaps its other common names better describe it: Shield Fern, Spreading Wood Fern, Triangular Wood Fern. The leaflets of this semi-evergreen fern form a triangle-shaped frond. Below the leaflets, the stem of the frond is scaly and rough. The fronds come up in a cluster, like Sword Fern or Lady Fern. It looks very similar to Lady Fern.
For the longest time, I didn’t recognize Spiny Wood Fern as a different plant than Lady Fern. I finally learned to tell them apart when I was out in the woods one fall. The Lady Ferns’ wilted and colorless fronds were dying back for the winter. But in among the dead fronds stood fronds as green and fresh as ever. That’s when I took a closer look. Lady Fern’s light green frond almost looks like a long diamond, the largest leaflets in the middle of the frond. The frond has leaflets almost all the way down to its base.

Spiny Wood Fern’s leaflets are more divided than Lady Fern’s. It is also darker green. In the last couple of years, we have had pretty mild winters, and I noticed that it stayed green almost all through the winter.

A couple of other differences: Lady Fern, in its favorite conditions (wet and shady) can grow huge – with fronds up to seven feet long! Terrific for that jungle look! Spiny Wood Fern’s fronds only reach about three-and-a-half feet at the max.

While they both like full shade to partially sunny conditions, and often grow together, Spiny Wood Fern tends to grow in drier areas than Lady Fern, such as wooded hillsides and up on rotting logs.
Lady fern can fend for itself in fairly dry conditions, however. I have one sprouting from my rockery, where it gets sun for much of the day. In drier conditions, Lady Fern will stay smaller, and may be a lighter green. A recommendation: Plant Lady Ferns in a mostly shady area, with bunches of Foamflower (Tiarella trifoliata) between.

TWINFLOWER (Linnaea borealis)
Professor Art Kruckeberg voices respect for this creeping vine in his classic book, GARDENING WITH NATIVE PLANTS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: “It is of sterling quality in or out of flower.” And according to family lore, Twinflower was recognized as an esthetic asset generations ago. Garlands of Twinflower adorned the Paradise Lake picnic area at a 1930s reunion of the Paradise Valley homesteading families.

The serviceability of Twinflower as an evergreen groundcover in partial to full shade stands out if you take just one look at the creeping stems covered with small, round, shiny leaves. But the magic of Twinflower lies in its dainty pink flowers. From May into August, goblet-shaped blossoms lift a few inches above the rich green mat of foliage like pairs of fairy streetlights.

When my daughter was little, she used to pretend the nodding blooms were tiny princesses in ball gowns. “They have a little head and a little shawl,” this now 20-year-old little girl recently confessed.

With that flight of fancy in mind, another common name for Twinflower, “Twin Sisters,” sounds very appropriate. Another common name “Ground Vine,” is too boring to bother with.

Twinflower/Twin Sisters naturally grows in either moist or dry conditions under cedars, Doug Firs or hemlocks. It carpets the ground rapidly once established, but I have never heard it described as “aggressive.” Don’t pass up an opportunity to get hold of it!

MORE BIZ
To see good pictures and get more information o Twinflower and Lady Fern, get on your computer and surf on over to Washington State University’s Native Plant Identification website at. Click here to see a good picture of Spiny Wood Fern.

Want more ideas? Get your mitts on April Pettinger’s book, Native Plants in the Coastal Garden. She takes an ecological approach, writing about the natural plant communities in which various plants grow. She emphasizes plants that are native to coastal (which includes the greater Puget Sound area) Washington and British Columbia. This book is one of several sources used to help compile this article.

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