Hunting for Easter eggs?  Tadpole Haven has eggs!  The Pacific Chorus Frogs have been busy.  The kiddy pools where we grow wetland plants are full of egg clutches.  These clusters of brown-and-cream colored eggs are in a chicken-egg size clump of clear jelly bigger than the frog that laid it!  The females lay their eggs around narrow stems of shoreline plants such as Marsh Cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris), Water Parsley (Oenanthe sarmentosa), Common Rush (Juncus effusus) and even the roots and smaller stems of Red-Twig Dogwood (Cornus sericea). 

 Chorus Frogs live in shady forest during the year and only come to lakes and ponds to breed.  The tadpoles are tiny—about ½” long—and will metamorphose into tiny frogs by fall if their pond is warm and sunny enough.  I’m afraid we may have had some casualties last fall; there were still tadpoles in the pools in October.  Maybe we’ll have a warmer spring this year, though it sure has been chilly so far!

 Even though I found myself driving through a snowstorm yesterday, I’m seeing new life and activity in and around the nursery.  I spotted a rusty-striped Garter Snake sunning—yes, SUNNING—itself on top of some sticks yesterday.  A pair of Bald Eagles is hanging out by the lake.  I got a good look at one flying a couple of days ago, and yesterday a patch of bright white—the eagle’s head–gave away the raptor’s location, a perch in a distant White Pine (Pinus monticola).

 My sister found the head—just the head—of a female Mallard Duck on the dock.  Perhaps the eagle was the guilty party.  Yuck.  Ah, well, Circle of Life, eat-and-be-eaten, Death into Life.  Who are we trying to kid?  We’re all subject to the laws of nature, whether we are a cute ducky or a businessman in a BMW.

 I’d rather talk about the Bumblebees and Rufous Hummingbird nursing the blossoms of the big Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum), the pretty new growth on the Cascade Penstemons (Penstemon serrulatus), the bright yellow-green sprouts emerging from the formerly dead-looking Goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) pots and preparing for their annual outrageous growth spurt.  And FINALLY the Oak Fern (Gymnocarpium dryopteris) is showing some life—a few miniscule nano-fronds curling up from the dirt.  I can hardly wait until they are a frilly carpet of brilliant green.

 Come hunt some (frog) eggs and garter snakes, see if you can spot the Oak Fern fronds, get buzzed by Rufus the Hummingbird, listen for the crows announcing the eagle’s arrival. And whether celebrating Resurrection, Fertility Goddesses or just a great Spring Weekend, we’ll all be celebrating New Life.

 To Life!

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I’ve been wandering the nursery in the rain picking out promising plants to bring to Seattle Audubon Society’s Spring Sale.  Though a lot of plants still are dormant, I got a little excited when I saw the new shoots on the False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosa) and Wild Lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum dilatatum), the uncurling rosettes of leaves on the Western Columbine (Aquilegia Formosa) and the bright yellow flowers on Tall Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium).  We have some beautifully shaped Vine Maple (Acer circinatum).  They are under two feet tall, but are well on their way to becoming prize-winners!  The Trilliums (Trillium ovatum) are cute, but are still babies, not ready to bloom yet.  But I’ll bring some for the patient among you.  Some nice Wood Fern (Dryopteris expansa) and Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum) are still dormant, but promise to vigorously put out fronds SOON.

I promise to bring some great natives.  I WISH I could promise sunshine…

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“The quawmash is now in blume … at a short distance it resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete is this deseption that on first sight I could have swoarn it was water.”  – Meriwether Lewis, June, 1806, Weippe Prairie, N.E. Idaho* 

“The quawmash is now in sprowte in the Green House… compassed about with Puddles of raine water.”  -Shirley Doolittle-Egerdahl, March 2012, Tadpole Haven Native Plants

Camas stands for balance, in my mind.  The Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest relied on Camas bulbs (“quawmash”) as an important starchy component of their diet.  Camas grows in moist parts of open grassy prairies.  In Western Washington, the Native Americans used fire to keep the camas prairies free of Douglas Firs.  In this way, they actively practiced agriculture, but in a way that was in balance with the ecology. 

Oak trees would survive the periodic burning, and indeed, the burning stimulated oak seeds to germinate.  Most of the Puget Sound region’s prairies are in Pierce and Thurston counties, where you can still see our native oak – Garry Oak or Oregon White Oak (Quercus garryana).  But after Indian burning ceased in the mid-1800s, the Douglas Fir forest encroached.  Then of course came settlers with their brand of agriculture.  Now much of the camas prairie-cum-farmland is invaded by roads and driveways, lawns and houses planted by by suburban “settlers”.  Untended remnants of prairie often become overrun by Spanish and Scot’s Broom.  There are efforts to save large prairie areas and some controlled burning has been used.  The Mima Mounds or the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area are good places to see prairies, a.k.a. oak savannahs.  The Washington Native Plant Society has focused on Garry Oak Ecosystems (which include prairies) as a conservation priority.

West of the Cascades, we have two native blue-flowered Camas species, Common Camas (Camassia quamash) and Great Camas (Camassia leichtlinii).  Both of them do well in soil that holds winter moisture – they can be completely inundated — but dries out in the summer.  They readily re-seed themselves, but it is easy to unwittingly weed out their seedlings, which resemble blades of grass.

*June 12, 1806 http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/lewis-clark-journal/day760.html#ixzz1p761P23O

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I hope you didn’t get
seriously frightened On Halloween.  Here
are a few seriously scary tricks to spook you:

Erosion!  This insidious evil claws away precious soil
and fouls streams and rivers.  Native
plants drive a silver stake through the heart of erosion, stabilizing slippery
slopes with their roots.  Sword Fern’s
fibrous roots are especially protective of soil, and its evergreen fronds break
the force of a hard rainfall, allowing water to gently soak in.

Extinction!  Manufactured by the Frankensteinian ill of
blind progress, extinction overtakes poor creatures displaced by human
activity.  In our area, we have nearly
extirpated the Western Pond Turtle and the Western Toad.  Development has destroyed their
habitats.  Native plants are probably the
best way to re-create homes for sensitive species like Red-legged Frogs.  Native plants help filter runoff water,
keeping streams and rivers pure for salmon and freshwater mussels.  Ultimately, the species you save may be your
own.

Existential
angst!  This psychological Jack-the-Ripper tears at
our souls and hinders our ability to enjoy life.  Counter it with ample treats from
nature.  Give yourself some time with –
what else? – native plants!  The other
day at Tadpole Haven, a customer found a pocket wilderness in one pot: a Red
Huckleberry was growing with Small-Flowered Wood Rush and mosses.  All she had to do was put her face up to the
little scene to immediately get a soothing dose of nature.  Soothe your soul.  Fight the darkness with the help of
nature-spaces.

Climate
Change!  This monster stalks the earth, creeping up
slowly, chuckling at our casual, inertia-bound attempts to wake ourselves into
action.  All over the globe, loss of
forest cover and “biomass” has fed the monster.
One solution to corralling the beast:
Plant and protect native trees!
Carbon-absorbing, water-holding forests.
Even enlarging patchy back-yard suburban and urban forests contributes.

Climate change used to be
less well understood.  Back in the 70s or
80s, we feared “Greenhouse Warming”.  But
last Saturday, that term had a positive meaning:  We celebrated a Greenhouse-warming for Tadpole Haven’s newly completed
greenhouse!  Shirley made brownies.  That’s scary.

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A tree frog has
been voicing its soft, slow “crrr-i-i-ck” sound in our yard off and on for the
last few weeks.  We heard it several days
in a row, then heard it in a neighbor’s yard one day, another neighbor’s the
next, then for a few days we didn’t hear it at all.  But now it has been back for a few days.  We are sure that it has decided that our yard
is the best yard for a tree frog.

Our home is in the
bustling heart of that megalopolis, Carnation, a 15-mile commute from the
nursery, where tree frog tadpoles in the kiddy pools are getting ready to turn
into frogs.  The voice of the frog at
home reminds me that I haven’t checked on the tadpoles for a few weeks.  Have they already metamorphosed and hopped
away?  I’ve been too preoccupied, doing
my modern human stress-out scramble thing, to pay attention to these creatures
undergoing this wondrous transformation, a once-in-a-lifetime event!  Just think what it would be like if your
whole life was in a bright blue kiddy pool, with some algae to nibble and some
rushes and water parsley and marsh cinquefoil to hide among.  And the one day, everything changes.  These little feet that have been growing
handily enable you to crawl up on a reed, into Another World.  The sky IS the limit!  The whole earth is before you.  It’s a little scary, though.  Danger lurks everywhere.  The garter snakes that hide under the flap of
black plastic are on the lookout for tasty green snacks.  Hiding is an important ability for a tree frog.

Our yard is over a
quarter of a mile from the pond our resident frog must have started out in.  That’s a lot of earth that little frog has
seen!  And it seems to have settled in; Brian
has planted lots of native plants for it to hide among.  Brian owns a landscaping business, Biosphere
Company, and especially enjoys working for clients who use his knowledge of how
to create a welcoming environment for frogs, birds and all sorts of insects. He
puts that know-how to work at our house.
By design, not laziness (!), the Sword Ferns wear a skirt made of a few
years worth of old fronds.  That is a
good spot for frogs and salamanders to keep cool in summer and warm in
winter.  The Redwood Sorrel in the shade
of the three Western Redcedars grows thick and is good cover for a little tree
frog.  In the sunnier part of the yard, shrubs
like Mock Orange, Tall Oregon Grape and American Cranberrybush provide protection
from predators, especially since they are surrounded by native perennials –
Penstemons, Western Bergamot, Western Columbine and Henderson’s Checkermallow.  We have an amazing amount of beautiful diversity
around our house.  No wonder that
invisible little frog is happy here!

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The morning fog matched my foggy brain.  I’d like to think the fog (in my brain) was because my body is so in tune with nature.  It’s more likely due to all the junk food I ate over Labor day weekend as I greedily snatched at the sunshine, knowing that I can’t expect much more, and feeling gypped that summer didn’t start until it was nearly over!

While the humans are desperately squeezing in their last barbeques and summer brews, and breaking open their last MSG-laden chips, the squirrels are thinking long-term, stocking up on healthy snacks, nipping off Douglas Fir and Western Redcedar cones from high in the tree canopy.  Other animals are fattening up for winter.  The deer finally discovered Tadpole Haven’s smorgasbord of shrubs.  They have enjoyed the lush, well-watered nursery plants, preferring them over the less pampered shrubs in the woods.  While deer enjoy “pruning” juicy leaves and twigs (thanks for the help, guys), many other critters favor berries.  This summer brought a terrific harvest of Red Huckleberry.  PJ the Springer Spaniel demonstrates the coyote technique, deftly nibbling low-hanging huckleberries, Salal and blackberries.

I have also been collecting — and planting — seeds. I spent a few hot afternoons recently grappling berries from Bitter Cherry and Cascara trees.  I had these berries and several other bags of various seeds in the potting shelter for several days while I worked on getting them planted.  Each evening, the thought flitted through my mind that if I don’t put them inside, perhaps some little (or maybe not-so-little) critter might get into them.  Aw, what’re the chances?  Neatness is such a hassle! One morning, I arrived to find the garbage can upended (SOMEONE had left food garbage in it) and some of my bags of seeds tipped over.  The fruit-muncher had nuzzled through the Oregon Grapes, but was really after black gold – cascara berries – and had gobbled most of my take!  Sometime during the day, a large black seed-laden pile of poop appeared in the driveway, confirming that not only was our nighttime visitor a bear, it had been in the woods next to the nursery as we worked there during the day!

I feel a bit guilty; I’ve committed the sin of tempting a bear to lose its fear of people, an attitude that gets bears into big trouble.  So now, I am belatedly stashing all temptations away each night. This episode with the Cascara berries shows Cascara’s value as a wildlife plant.  This small tree is popular with dozens of species: mammals (large and small), birds and insects.  I have lots of beautiful little Cascaras (Rhamnus purshiana) in the nursery (the deer snubbed them!), waiting to become part of your backyard wildlife habitat. It may have been a marketing blunder to mention “cascara” and “bear” in the same sentence.  But there is no need to run screaming from native plants just because some little old bear might some night wander through.  Just respect their wildness and don’t tempt them with attractive morsels left out at night, such as unburied food garbage or bite-size pets.

The deer and bear visits remind me of the great need for habitat replacement all over the Puget Sound area.  Wildlife needs wild space.  Pockets of habitat serve small creatures and many species of birds; that’s easy to create even in a small city yard.  But contiguous natural areas are extremely important for all wildlife. Anything you can do to help creatures large and small find refuge, food or safe travel space in your yard, local park or open space, helps.

Planting natives is a start.  Thoughtful community planning with input from citizens is important. How can you help wildlife in your eighborhood?  How can you help your community work through the knotty issues that too often pit humans against other creatures?

Time to put away the corn chips, pack in the barbeque (and clean up its tempting drippings!) and come out of your late-summer fog.  Make some plans and get to work!

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Well, we’re almost at the Summer Solstice, and I can’t recall having Spring yet …do you?

But the plants in the nursery and along the local trails noticed Spring – they have been growing like crazy! It’s a jungle out there!

It is gratifying to see the fruits of our labors in the nursery. Many of the plants that we potted during the Winter are rooted-in and ready for homes. Plants that we fertilized are looking terrific. We mainly use Walt’s Organic Fertilizer products. Great stuff! Check out their shop in Seattle, almost under the Ballard Bridge. They carry a wide variety of organic soil amendments PLUS native plants (great in-town source for Tadpole Haven plants), vegetable starts, seeds and books.

A few of the plants that showcase the fruits of our labors are Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus), Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) and Cascade Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa). All three are fruit-bearing shrubs, though it’s still too early in the season for their berries. All three form thickets. The Oregon Grape will take several years to do so, eventually forming an evergreen ground-cover layer 2-3 feet tall. Snowberry and Thimbleberry, both deciduous shrubs, spread quickly and generally range in height from 4-6 feet. Their quick thicket-forming talents make them very good at stabilizing soil on slopes and providing cover for birds and other wildlife, but less good at behaving themselves in a small garden.

Thimbleberry has big, soft, maple-like leaves; attractive white flowers (~1 1/2″ across) and tasty berries for people and other creatures. It thrives where it can get lots of light, but not a lot of intense sun.

Snowberry’s tiny pink flowers give way to pretty white berries that will often last all winter. The berries are inedible for humans; and birds prefer other berries, but will eat them when other food sources run short in winter. It will grow in shady areas (even fairly dry shade), but also does great out in the sun. I have seen it in wet places and dry places – definitely versatile.

Cascade Oregon Grape’s stalks of yellow flowers attract butterflies. The tart berries are perfectly edible and are eaten by many species of birds. It is at home in full shade to mostly sun, though in a sunny spot it may need to be watered for the first few summers. In a sunny place, its leaves sometimes turn dark red. It is a perfect choice for dry shade, along with its natural companions, Salal (Gaultheria shallon) and Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum).

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To-do lists: helpful tools, they can also be overwhelming. I and other family members spent ten hours on Sunday helping my sister move into her new house adjacent to the nursery. And there is still so much to do! Standing in her pretty new living room on Monday afternoon, surrounded by stacks of boxes and upended chairs, Kay rattled off The List. I listened to her, the energy draining out of me. This is how Superman felt when handed a chunk of Kryptonite, I thought. The day before, I was actually RUNNING, hoisting things, loading and unloading three vans, a truck and a trailer. Now I was immobilized.

I managed to stumble outside to work on one of my to-do items: repair some of the ugly destruction done by the septic installer’s trackhoe at the edge of the forest. Where to start? Well, here’s a bucket of Piggyback Plants (Tolmiea menziesii) that need to be planted; maybe that’ll do it. Oh, and those four Sword Ferns (Polystichum munitum) heaped in my trunk that I meant to pot up – those would look nice. Oh, ugh, have to haul mulch.

My sister-in-law, Nancy, showed up. She was also suffering from list-induced Kryptonitis, so she half-heartedly began to help me. She dug holes for the ferns. They looked good. We wandered through the nursery, grabbing this and that. That cheered us up a bit. And how about that Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) that I’ve been torturing in a patio pot for the last three years? Look how pretty and happy it will be next to this mossy nurse log! Nancy’s shovel-strokes picked up steam. I hauled more mulch. After a while, the area looked pretty nice. Not the most organized way to design a landscape — it kind of designed itself.

Now a couple of Currants and a clump of seedling Red Huckleberries (Vaccinium parvifolium) soften the damage near the forest edge, and Wood Ferns (Dryopteris expansa) comfort a mangled left-behind Cascara (Rhamnus purshiana). In front of those on the edge of the new drainfield sprout Piggybacks, False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosa), lots of Inside-Out Flower (Vancouveria hexandra), and Sword Ferns. Western Meadowrue (Thalictrum occidentale) hides the ugly green septic lid. There’s room for more, but for now, we are satisfied. The green things gave us some of their energy. Mending the damage felt good. We accomplished something.

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True confession:  I am a lousy gardener.  Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE spending time in the garden!  Sitting.  Or strolling about, holding a glass of wine.  Lucky for me, Brian likes working in the yard, even though he does a lot of that for a living.  Lately, while strolling in the garden, I’ve been admiring our lush patches of Siberian Miner’s Lettuce.  They look like a field of stars! 

 Siberian Miner’s Lettuce (Claytonia sibirica) is a cute little edible wildflower, good in salads or as an accompaniment to a glass of Pinot gris.  It is a perennial, but each individual plant seems to live for just two or three years, seeding itself around liberally in light shade.   I notice that at home, where the soil is dense and clay-ey, they are very upright, each clump is very dense and their stems are dark green.  In the little garden by the nursery office, the soil is much sandier, and the plants are more spreading, their succulent leaves intertwining with those of their neighbors.  Their leaves are bright green.  If a plant is in an exposed area, it will be very stout and low-growing and dark, almost turning deep red.  The flowers are white to pink, with tiny stripes of pink on the petals.  It is native along the west coast from Alaska to northern California and throughout the Northwest.  And in Russia—hence the name.  It’s also known as Candyflower and Siberian Springbeauty.

 At the Spring Garden Fair last month, a neighboring vendor made fun of my Miner’s Lettuce – “I rip that stuff out,” he wise-cracked.  I refrained from being rude, but maybe I should have made fun of HIM – here he has a beautiful, easy-care, tasty, native groundcover and he is silly enough to think of it as a weed!  Why would you rip it out?  Why wouldn’t you at least give it a patch of shade where it can cavort freely?  You may want to redirect its energies a bit, pulling up volunteers that pop up next to perennials that haven’t gotten fully established yet, but wherever you can, I say let it go!  Wherever you have bare ground, SOMETHING will grow, so Siberian Miner’s Lettuce is a pretty alternative to some pesky, non-native weed. 

 A clump of Siberian Miner’s Lettuce will get larger, spreading out using short rhizomes, its main method of spreading is by seed.  Now is a good time to plant some in your garden (if you are not already blessed by its presence) so it can settle in before fall and go to seed, ensuring a good supply next year.  It’s an ideal plant for a lousy gardener. 

Spend some time in your garden!   😉

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I have been forced to get out into the woods this week – what a hardship – to look at our family’s forest area adjacent to the nursery.  My daughter and I are enrolled in WSU Extension’s Forest Stewardship Coached Planning course, which is helping us create a forest plan.  So we need to traipse around the property, identifying different stands of vegetation, checking on tree health, figuring out what wildlife features we have – snags, downed logs, etc.  Even if you have only a couple of acres, this class is a terrific way to gain knowledge of trees, ecosystems and forest resources.  And it potentially qualifies your property for a tax break.

 I love the trees, but my eyes are always drawn to the little understory plants.  Everything is finally popping up, and one of the plants I see frequently is Piggy-back Plant (Tolmiea menziesii).  The Piggy-back Plants that are in the nursery waiting for homes are descendants of our forest’s Piggy-backs.

Piggy-back Plant has ardent fans: one customer first came to Tadpole Haven in pursuit of the Piggy-back.  She had fallen in love with them in California when they were popular houseplants in the 60s, and while living in southern Oregon, visited the Puget Sound area and was amazed to see them growing wild and lush in the forests here.  So when she retired to this area, she was excited to take home two plants for her small yard.  Now she has a rock wall that is populated with Piggy-backs.

 Piggy-back Plant’s appeal is in its lush growth and playful appearance: tiny leaves perch on large older leaves – riding piggy-back.  It is also called “Youth-on-Age”.  As the new leaf grows at the base of the old, their collective weight eventually causes the pair to settle onto the ground.  The new leaf has already sprouted anticipatory roots and as its host decomposes, forms a brand new plant.  The purply-brown flowers are not showy, but have a graceful feathery look, stretching above the foliage, up to 3’ tall.  In the fall, as the spent flower stalks collapse, they too will often sprout piggy-back leaves and roots at the nodes.  You may often see Piggy-back in quite wet spots in the forest, but it does fine in drier shady spots where the soil retains moisture.

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