My Top Five Native Plant Picks For Your Pacific Northwest Garden

Hello all fellow garden friends, if you love to garden like I do, then I hope you will love my top PNW native plant picks for 2019.

1. Oregon Grapeholly

One of the finest flowering shrubs, Oregon grapeholly offers beautiful evergreen foliage. In spring, it bears clusters of golden-yellow blooms that are followed by blue fruits loved by birds.

Name: Mahonia aquifolium Growing Conditions: Full shade and moist, well-drained soil Size: To 4 feet tall Zones: 6-9

2. Tufted Hairgrass

One of the more elegant ornamental grasses, tufted hairgrass offers soft, fine-textured, green foliage. It makes a great backdrop for other drought-tolerant perennials such as coneflowers and black-eyed Susans.

Name: Deschampsia caespitosa Growing Conditions: Full sun and well-drained soil, Size: 3-4 feet tall, Zones: 4-9

3. Miniature Hollyhock

Resembling its taller cousin, this miniature plant is beautiful in the middle of the border or as a cut flower. The blooms appear in shades of pink, red, and lavender. One of my favorite selections is ‘Brilliant’, a variety with lipstick-red flowers.

Name: Sidalcea oregana Growing Conditions: Full sun and moist soil Size: To 3 feet tall Zones 4-9

4. Blechnum spicant (Deer Fern or Hard Fern)

A fine evergreen native fern, reaching heights of only 12-24.”

The low-growing sterile fronds spread horizontally from a basal tuft, while the fertile fronds are thin and deciduous and grow erect, directly from the center of the clump. The specimen at lower right growing in a private garden in Oregon’s Willamette Valley is a fine mature example of this growth habit.

A fine native fern, it is found from Alaska to California and inland to Idaho, USDA zones 4-8. It likes moist, acidic soil.

The young leaves of this fern were chewed by Hesquiat hunters and travelers as a hunger suppressant.

The common name may reflect the fact that this plant is an important browse for deer and elk. It may also be traced to a Native belief that Deer Fern has medicinal properties, knowledge gleaned from observing deer rub their heads against the plant after they lose their antlers.

5. Tsuga mertensiana (Mountain Hemlock)

An outstanding, very slow growing, beautiful small evergreen, 10 – 20 ft, native to the high mountains.

Grayish-green foliage, often glaucous.

Ideal for SMALL gardens, bonsai.

P.S. Check out my blog 5 MUST HAVE BOOKS FOR THE HOME AND GARDEN ENTHUSIAST where I recommend a BONSAI book and explain more about this Asian art form.

HAPPY GARDENING,

Tamara xo