The warm weather that we’ve had is making things pop above the ground. The Shootingstars (Dodecatheon pulchellum, Dodecatheon hendersonii)are emerging, though i haven’t seen any sign of their brilliant magenta flowers yet. The Western Meadowrue (Thalictrum occidentale) is emerging, unfurling its delicate leaves. The new leaves called attention to a mistake: as we tidied the area around the Meadowrue–which dies back to absolutely nothing in the winter time–we had stacked the flats of dead-looking pots. Yesterday we un-stacked them, hoping they were still alive. Sure enough, even the plants buried deep in the pile were emerging. A little paler than they should have been, but alive. To quote the movie Jurassic Park: “Life will find a way.”

Speaking of Jurassic Park, Tadpole Haven has a new denizen–Tyrannosaurus Gus.  Some of you know that last fall, PJ the Springer Spaniel went to her final reward. She was 16 years old. This Christmas, my children ganged up on me and got me a Brittany spaniel puppy–Gus. A.k.a. Tyrannosaurus Gus, a.k.a. The Gus-inator.

Do you know how hard it is to haul wood chips with a puppy trying to bite the wheelbarrow tires? Or to pull a customer’s order while a spotted monster is chomping the stems of the bought-and-paid-for trees and shrubs? Ah well, Life will find a way.

Dodecatheon pulchellum

Tyrannosaurus Gus

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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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It’s May Day!  When I was a child, my siblings and I prepared for May Day by making May baskets out of construction paper. Then on May Day we filled them with flowers that our mother helped us pick from the yard.  We delivered them surreptitiously to each neighbor’s house, sneaking the colorful baskets onto the porch, ringing the doorbell then quickly hiding in the shrubbery.  It was so much fun!  I know the neighbors appreciated our efforts.  I think it helped me appreciate that I was part of a community.

May Day just happens to fall in the middle of Native Plant Appreciation Week!  Check out the Washington Native Plant Society’s web page for events and sales.

Us humans tend to appreciate native plants for the ways that they directly benefit us; we enjoy looking at Great Camas (Cammassia leichtlinii) and Trillium (Trillium ovatum) flowers or we value the Nootka Rose’s (Rosa nutkana) erosion-preventing ability and the beauty and scent of its flowers.  Particular features of a plant are often reason enough to plant them, but it is easy to lose sight of the Big Picture: the health of natural systems – communities of which we are a part.

Biodiversity, buffering against the effects of climate change, protection of clean water – these are just a few ways that native plant species contribute to the whole.  A rich variety of native plants helps provide built-in resilience against natural and human-caused disruptions.

What does “resilience” mean? My Webster’s Unabridged’s first definition: “An act of springing back; rebound, recoil, elasticity.”  How do we maintain and increase this resilience?  By caring for natural areas, maintaining ample buffers around water, protecting and increasing forest cover, and turning our yards and gardens into habitat.  We increase our local ecosystem’s resilience when we avoid using pesticides and weed-killers and make sure runoff from our driveways and roofs can be naturally absorbed into the soil on our own property.

Resilience in the ecosystem protects native creatures, such as amphibian species.  And ultimately, human life.  Native plants, from the majestic Western Red Cedar to the graceful blades of Oregon Iris are individual components participating in the community of life.

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April 11, 2014

Right now is prime Trillium time in the forests of Western Washington. They are bright pure white, but will gradually turn pink and may darken all the way to purple before the flower withers.  It ages very gracefully.  I should take notes.

 This wild lily had an aura of magic for me as a child (still does). My mother would fiercely tell me never to pick them, impressing on me: “It won’t bloom again for seven years!  SEVEN YEARS!”

 There is a fair amount of truth in that; picking the bloom and it’s three-part leaf will set it back a few years at least. The plant has lost most of a season’s worth of photosynthesis and the next year has to draw on whatever reserves of energy it has left in the bulb.

 The Western Trillium likes bright shade and moist but not wet conditions. They can be difficult to dig up and move; often the bulb is very deep. But planting out a Trillium “raised in captivity” works fine. It does fine in home gardens and will multiply and form clusters of blooms when it’s really happy.  The bulbs multiply, sending up more stems, and seeds will sprout as well.  Don’t mean to brag, but Brian counted 22 blossoms last week on one clump in our yard.  Top that!

 The first year seedlings are just a narrow blade approximately ½” long. Second-year seedlings are a single fat leaf about the size of a dime.  Along about the third year, they show the tell-tale three leaflets, but they won’t bloom until the fifth year at the earliest.

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I have a confession to make. The name “Tadpole Haven” has a dastardly origin. In the 1920s, a neighbor started a Bullfrog “ranch”, raising the big frogs for their tasty (I guess–never been brave enough to try them) legs, served up at Seattle restaurants. The name of the Bullfrog ranch was –you guessed it– Tadpole Haven. When the Depression hit in the early 1930s, Tadpole Haven went belly up, so to speak, the Bullfrogs were let loose into the adjoining lake and ever since have been serenading us on summer nights, simultaneously snarfing down the native salamanders, frogs, toads, ducklings and pretty much anything else they can get their big mouths around.

So Tadpole Haven is a recycled, or rather, re-used, name. Actually, I re-purposed the name, applying it to a higher cause than the original. It was originally used to market an invasive species, introduced by humans, which wreaked havoc on the ecosystem. Now, I use the name to market native species (of plants) which humans re-introduce to areas upon which havoc had previously been wrought by humans and their invasive hench-frogs. And from ANY frog’s point of view, a place that nurtures their growth and life is an honest Haven; a euphemistic Haven that is really a butcher shop is no Haven at all.

Pacific Chorus Frogs have laid quite a few clutches of eggs on the native plants in the nursery’s kiddie pools (we really are a Haven). They are elongating into the shape of tadpoles. The warm spring days will help them develop until they hatch.

In the lake, Northwest Salamander eggs are developing within the firm gel of their soft-ball-sized egg masses. The female amphibians lay their egg clutches on the stems of native plants: sedges, rushes, Water Parsley (Oenanthe sarmentosa), Marsh Cinquefoil (Comarum palustre), Red-Twig Dogwood (Cornus sericea), to name a few. Long-toed Salamanders also lay their eggs in the lake, but those eggs are hard to see; the egg clutches are less than an inch long. Hopefully, we also have some Red-Legged Frogs breeding in the lake.

The tiny Pacific Chorus Frogs (adult’s bodies don’t get much over one inch long) come in a few different colors. Usually they are green, but also can be beige or brown. Each frog has a unique pattern of spots. They are also called Tree Frogs or Spring Peepers. They are one of several species of amphibians that live in and around Tadpole Haven.

Like Pacific Chorus Frogs, Northwest Salamanders, Long-toed Salamanders, Red-Legged Frogs and Rough-skinned Newts live most of their lives in the forests or wetland margins surrounding the bodies of water where they breed, lay their eggs and live their pre-metamorphosis tadpole phase. The invasive Bullfrogs (boo-hiss) need year-round water; their pollywogs take two summers to mature into frogs, and the adults remain in or near water most of their lives migrating as needed to find new territories.

During our years as volunteer monitors, my cousin Andy and I found occasional Red-Legged Frog egg masses the first few years (see my previous blog entry). We never saw, or expected to see, the eggs of the Oregon Spotted Frog, which has been declared extirpated in the area. I have not seen any Western Toads since I was a kid. The Western Toad suffered a population crash due to a fungal disease. But the loss and degradation of habitat caused by humans are the biggest factors causing loss of amphibians (these threats will likely be magnified in the future by the effects of climate change and disease—sigh).

Red-Legged Frogs spend their adult lives in the forest. Ensatinas and Western Redback Salamanders are salamanders that live their entire life cycle on land, in forests. As development has destroyed our forests, it has killed off these forest-dependent amphibians. So it is important to protect still-standing forests from clearing, grading and building. Buffers that are required around wetlands, and greenbelts winding through housing developments are no substitute for healthy local forests, which shelter many more species.

Many amphibians are especially sensitive to chemical changes in their habitat: for example, road, fertilizer and pesticide runoff into the waters in which they breed. Or pesticide and chemical fertilizer use in back yards: the Western Redback Salamander has no lungs–it breathes through its skin, directly absorbing every toxin.

If I could work up an appetite for Bullfrog legs, maybe I could reduce ONE of the threats to native amphibians. My neighbor Neal toldme how to catch bullfrogs at night: “Frogs’ eyes glow in the light. The light paralyzes them. So you get two people, one with a flashlight. You listen for the croaking –then you row in slow and quiet ‘til you’ve got the flashlight an inch from their nose, then you grab’em behind the ears and put’em in a bucket.”

Then you either cook ’em up for supper, or humanely kill them by sticking them in the freezer. Eew! (That last suggestion from Brian Bodenbach,* who contributed to this tome)

Sounds like fun, but I think I’ll wait for summer! Bullfrog-pops anyone?

* Brian Bodenbach, Biosphere Landscape Co., brian@biospherecompany.com

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The Pacific Chorus Frogs are in full voice, the males calling to the silent females.  If you live near a wetland that has even a little bit of open water, you hear them.

Their voices remind me of my amphibian-monitoring days with my cousin Andy*.  We volunteered with King County in the late 1990s to basically help count amphibian eggs, a good way to gauge the health of certain amphibian populations and to get a picture of the general health of the ecosystem.  After undergoing training, we and dozens of other newly-hatched citizen scientists were turned loose on our assigned local lake or wetland.  In our case we were assigned to the small lake on our family property, adjacent to the plant nursery.

Our assignment: go forth 3-4 times February to April, identify and record the location and condition of amphibian eggs, and make notes of other amphibian sightings.

February is a killer time to be out in a canoe in awkward raingear, moving too slowly to keep warm, trying to write legibly on our “Rite-in-the-Rain” recording sheets.  We earned our pay!  …wait a minute, what pay? We did that for nothing?

Well, not for nothing. We got an unexpected payoff.  Andy was a salesman, and he would take the afternoon off for amphibian monitoring.  He came hyped-up in his Brooks Brothers cuffed slacks and tasseled loafers, spouting enthusiastic “Absolutely!”s while tugging on the hip boots and raingear.  As we pulled the canoe out of the boathouse, waded into the water by the dock to look for salamander egg masses, paddled together and began systematically surveying the shoreline, peering into the water to find the egg masses, Andy’s energy level shifted.

Andy changed from pumping out high-frequency self-generated energy to a receptive mode.  He’d gently reach into the freezing water with his bare hand and cradle a clutch of frog or salamander eggs so we could identify the species and estimate the percentage of live eggs.  Before we got half-way around the lake, we both settled into a rhythm more natural than that of our harried daily lives.  In February, that rhythm included shivering, but we agreed that we always felt more grounded and relaxed.  Turns out that as we studied frog habitat, that habitat asserted itself as our own natural habitat, reclaiming our psyches. A wonderful side effect was the deepening of our friendship.

We were keenly aware that amphibians depended on quality habitat for their health: clean water, appropriate native plants to lay their egg clutches on, adjacent forest cover and minimal predation and disease.  But our own need for a healthy natural habitat only asserted itself as we immersed ourselves in amphibian habitat.

So get outside!  Join the frogs and get your green on! 

*Andy McDonald, April 1955-March 2013

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We’re in the late-February slog of a western Washington winter. Personally, I’m done with winter, but it doesn’t seem to be done with me. I’m trying to look for the silver lining (I can really see it today—what is that yellow-white orb in the sky?). Wet, cold weather is an important part of keeping Washington green. And right now, the native seeds we planted last fall are undergoing natural “stratification”; many species need two to three months of cold weather to soften them and prepare them for germination. And the plants know where we are in the calendar; Pretty Shootingstar (Dodecatheon pulchellum) and Great Camas (Cammassia leichtlinii) are fully informed and sprouting above the cold soil. Both grow from bulbs and seed themselves fairly easily.

Pretty Shootingstar is the easiest of the Shootingstars to grow. It does well in partial shade to full sun. It does best in moist, even wet conditions.

The bulb sends up leaves in early spring, then gratifies the gardener with gorgeous magenta flowers. Later, the seed pods drop seed which will readily germinate and thrive IF not out-competed by weeds OR victimized by indiscriminate weeding!

Great Camas does well in soil that holds winter moisture – it can be completely inundated — but dries out in the summer. It is easy to unwittingly weed out the seedlings, which resemble blades of grass.

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How about those Seahawks? This is why we won!

Tadpole Haven’s natives are ready to parade downtown Wednesday morning to welcome the Seahawks home…OH! AND to strut their stuff at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show!  Our plants will be at the WSNLA’s “Treasure Island Marketplace” (booth 2418).

Are you craving light?  I can’t help thinking about light!  What a relief that days are growing longer!  A week ago, during that glorious stretch of sunny weather, a friend spotted some people sunbathing on a beach towel in the middle of a pasture.  I took time to stand in a patch of sun, sleeves pushed up, eyes closed, face turned to that primeval source of life-giving energy.  I figured here was my drug-and-pill-free chance to naturally absorb Vitamin D and beat back Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Plus it gave me a spiritual boost –almost enough to convert me to paganism!

Plants are doing the same thing –responding to the return of life-giving light.  The most obvious are the bulbs that are coming up in everyone’s gardens; in the nursery, a few Great Camas (Cammassia leichtlinii) have poked above the soil. The buds on Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) and Red Alder (Alnus rubra) are swelling and changing color.  Western Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) buds are fat and fuzzy, and the catkins of the big ones in the woods have been showing for a month or more.  Cascara (Rhamnus purshiana) actually has miniature leaves forming on its branchtips.  Of course, wintertime is the best time to see our native mosses in full glory, both in the forest and in pots in the nursery.  Same goes for Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza), which revels in winter light, often high, high in the branches of majestic Big-Leaf Maples (Acer macrophyllum).  The pointed red shoots of Goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) are poised at ground level, ready to blast off like a surface-to-air missile.

READY FOR THE SHOW!

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