Saturday, March 20, 2010

Natives in my yard

Well, if you look closely underneath the ivy and the blackberry, I have some cool natives growing in my yard. This I discovered through a lady who responded to an ad on craigslist that I posted selling some of the sword ferns that I needed to remove for the vegetable garden. She wanted to come over and see if she found anything else cool. She was the nicest lady and she taught me a lot about the plants growing, and even sent me a list of the plants she saw!

Hi Amy,

I wanted to get back to you about your native plants before I forget to do it. The little plant that you had growing all over the moist area is in the Lily family and called "False lily of the valley." My book does say that it prefers moist areas. Apparently is was eaten by some native groups, and the leaves were used as a poultice.

The other plant that you found at the end with the hairy leaves I believe is Fringecup, but I'm not positive.

Looking at my book, the one that I said looked like elderberry...I don't think it is.

The book I have that I really like is Plants of the Pacific NW Coast by Pojar and McKinnon.

The plants I remember seeing in your yard are:

sword fern!
deer fern
licorice fern
lady fern
salal
Oregon grape
Indian plum
vine maple
Pacific ninebark (the one I told you the Native Americans used for bows)
hazelnut
red huckleberry
trailing blackberry
baldhip rose (I think)
trillium
two kinds of geraniums (I think they are the native ones)


Me again.

She forgot to mention lots of salmonberry and I think she called it a thimbleberry. Anyone know much about these plants?

2 comments:

Laura said...

I think the salmonberry and thimbleberry are different plants. I remember seeing them recently, maybe at One Green World's website when we were thinking of going out there. (and you did go, I stayed with Guy)

Cool! about the lady that knows so much and was there to share her knowledge.

Love,
Mom

Anonymous said...

What a nice lady, Amy. I hope the two of you can stay in touch. She sounds like a jewel. The Fringe Cup is Tellmia:

http://www.rainyside.com/features/plant_gallery/nativeplants/Tellima_grandiflora.html

It's closely related to heuchera. I'm growing Sword, Deer and Lady among others but Licorice is one I'm not familiar with. I'm also curious about the false lily of the valley. Did you take photos?