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Plant of the Month: Indian Plum (Oemlaria cerasiformis)
Around the time this newsletter comes out, some of you will probably be looking for the first signs of spring. A good place to start is the shrub Oemleria cerasiformis, also called osoberry or Indian plum. Native to the west slope of the Cascades from BC toCalifornia, it is one of the earliest low altitude spring bloomers. Here in thePuget Soundlowlands, it can occasionally be found in flower as early as late January. O. cerasiformis is dioeceous, with male plants being more common than females, and also sporting more flowers and a longer blooming time. Male and female flowers are superficially similar, but if you look inside (use a hand lens), the flower will either have developed stamens or ovaries. You can also “cheat” by looking for the remaining stems from last year’s fruit on the female plants. In the landscape, osoberry tends to blend in with the other shrubs in the forest edge or riparian area, an inconspicuous wall of green when it is not dressed in sprays of delicate white flowers. In my yard, at least, the leaves start to yellow and fall by late August, making it both early to bed and early to rise. The fruits are drupes, like plums or cherries, (also members of the rose family), and ripen as early as May or June, first blushing orange, then red, then nearly black when they are ripe. They are edible, if you can get to them before the birds and critters do – everyone from cedar waxwings and grosbeaks to raccoons and coyotes enjoys an osoberry. Try to find one from a sunny branch. It will have a higher sugar content. If you can collect enough, they make an excellent jam. So, put on your boots and raingear, and take yourself for a walk along a lowland forest edge, looking for the first signs of spring. See if you can find a female osoberry, and keep checking back in early summer. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find enough plums to make jam. Original Post by: Janka Hobbs
Mark Your Calendars – Native Plant Sale May 12, 2012
The Central Puget Sound Chapter’s Spring Native Plant Sale will be held at the Bellevue Botanical Garden on May 12, 2012, from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Plant Sale – NPAW – Plus
Spring Native Plant Sale
by WNPS on May 7th 2011, 10 am – 4 pm, at the Bellevue Botanical Garden, 12001 Main St., Bellevue.
Our sale will have over 100 species including ground covers, perennials, shrubs and trees that are ideal for our ecology.
Botanical and gardening books will be for sale and WNPS experts will be available to answer questions. Help sustain biodiversity by using native plants in your garden. You can plant your garden for beauty, bugs, birds and other critters that will provide so much more reward than just the usual “look-at” garden just by using native plants. Information: www.wnps.org , 206-527-3210 , lindaellis@wnps.org
Plus:
May 1-7 has been Proclaimed by Governor Gregoire as Native Plant Appreciation Week. Our website has family
friendly & free lecture programs, field trips, hikes and other activities to do all around the state. Many activities will continue to be offered beyond NPAW week into the rest of May and into June. wnps.org.
The 7:30 pm May 5th Lecture Program topic at CUH will be Stories of Washington’s Rarest Plants with copies of Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Washington available for purchase. Members of the editorial team who brought the book to completion will give a virtual tour of the natural areas of Washington, highlighting the most uncommon and rarely seen plants in the state. It promises to be a great program. CUH = Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St., Seattle.
Workshops: Diversity in the Desert is May 15 and Know your Grasses is June 15-17 and both are at UW. Look for them at wnps.org.
Native Garden Design Workshop
Join us for this is a new Growing Wild program offered by the Washington Native Plant Society – Central Puget Sound Chapter. The Native Garden Design Workshop is hands-on to provide attendees experience in reforming yards into native plant habitats.
Deborah Horn, owner of Artemis Gardens Landscape Design, will provide her professional landscape and design experience to help you design your native plant garden site, draw site plans, consider site constraints and help with plant selection. Bring photos of your yard to tackle specific problem areas. Deborah can help you get ready for our May 7th Native Plant Sale with a plan to reform your back yard into a beautiful habitat that can help support our local biodiversity.
The Workshop will be conducted over three days: Sat. March 12th & 19th (9 am to 12 noon) and Sun. March 13th will be Garden and Nursery tours. Workshop Cost is $100.00 (WNPS members $80.00). Location for both Saturdays is at Lewis Creek Visitor Center, 5808 Lakemont Blvd., Bellevue WA 98009. For sign-up instructions go to: www.wnps.org then click on Local Chapters and Central Puget Sound on the map. Click on Native Garden Design Workshop.
Questions and Information call WNPS at 206-527-3210 or email lindaellis@wnps.org.
May 7, 2011 Native Plant Sale
WNPS Central Puget Sound Chapter Plant Sale Committee is quietly working at the basics to prepare for the next big fund raising plant sale scheduled for Saturday, May 7, 2011 at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. An added plus, building up to our plant sale, is Douglas W. Tallamy appearing at Town Hall Seattle on Feb. 23, 2011 (7:30 pm), author of “Bringing Nature Home”. His message about the importance of gardening with native plants for sustaning local ecology is wonderful help for educating us all about what we can do to have a direct positive impact on our environment. This is very exciting in a nerdy gardening kinda way!
Get the spring plant sale on your calendar, tell friends, family and neighbors about it and if you need a calender the 2011 WNPS Calendar is a beauty. You can see it and buy it from our www.wnps.org website.
My next gardening task is while the earth soft from the rain is to pull up an old patch of vinca and get the area ready for kinniknnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)…lucyw.
Make Your Shopping List for May 7, 2011
Grab a glass of wine, get out your pencil and paper, and make your shopping list for the next Central Puget Sound Chapter Fund Raising Native Plant Sale. Plan to arrive early!
Here are some beautiful settings incorporating some of the beautiful spring flowers available at the Spring Plant Sale used in a partly sunny garden setting just like yours!
Take a look a these lovely plants, pick your favorite and click on the image to see a larger photo.
Native Penstemons – Beautiful Color for Your Sunny Garden
Are you looking for plants that thrive in full sun, poor soil, and generally hostile urban heat island environment? Then look no further than our native penstemons.
If you have a shady garden, we will have lots of native plants to choose from. Read Lovely Native Plants For Your Shade Garden for the details. BUT…
Penstemons are a genus native to North America with most species occurring in western North America. According to the University of Washington Herbarium, there are at least 29 native penstemon species in Washington. The word Penstemon in Latin means “five stamens” which is a common trait among the species, but in general only four of the five stamens are fertile.
Penstemons are found mostly in sunny and dry places, but a few species are found near forest edges and in more medic sites (such as P. ovatus and P. surrulatus). They are found from the the sagebrush of eastern Washington to high elevations of the Cascade and Olympic mountains. Most species have basal rosettes and flowering stems that arise from the base while other species form matts and hug the ground (P. davisonii, P. rupicola).
When in bloom, the flowering stems generally range from 2-18 inches, with a few species such as P. speciosus and P. ovatus topping over 2 ft. Flower colors range from blue, purple, pink to azure; Penstemon rupicola has hot pink flowers!
Penstemons are easy to grow and propagate well from both seeds, divisions, and cuttings. I have over 10 species of penstemons in my garden in Seattle. They are grown in the sunny and dry parts of the garden, in mostly mineral soil with little organic matter and little irrigation. I mix plants with different growth forms, leaf texture and flower colors to create visual interest.
For more information about Penstemons and more images, visit this site.
Alan Yen
2010 Plant Purchase Coordinator
Here’s Your Shopping List!
Making your list? Checking it twice? Here is the most current list of plants that will be available at the Spring Sale. While we will have hundreds of species and thousands of plants on hand, some of the very special plants will only be available in small quantities. To get the best selection, come early!
The sales starts at 10AM on May 8th, but shoppers start arriving early.
Grab a cup of coffee and a muffin, bring a friend, and have fun! It’s worth the wait!
Here are a some of the beauties we’ll have for you.
