Native plants will not only bring your garden to life in a way that is unique to your part of the world, it will also allow you to spend less time on chores and more time enjoying your garden.
Native PNW plants are better suited for our local soils, which tend to be fairly acidic anywhere but valley floors. If you plant certain traditional landscaping species, you may have to add soil amendments to raise pH, as well as fertilize regularly until soil pH is at the optimal level.
Plants can't remove most nutrients from the soil until pH is at the proper balance, so if you have plants in your soil that don't like the acidity, you'll need to fertilize regularly to ensure they have adequate nutrients to successfully complete their annual cycles.
Native plants like the soil just the way it is, and often they'll perform well when it is left alone. Many of the species we offer do well in poor soils, and often are the first to appear after forest fires.
Western Oregon and Washington, along with Northwestern California, get an incredible amount of rainfall each year. This technically classifies most of the coastal range as a temperate tropical rainforest. However the summer months are still relatively dry for most of us. Long periods of dry weather can be detrimental to landscaping plants, especially to those imported from areas that aren't used to the seasonal cycle of the PNW.
By planting natives instead, especially in areas where you don't have the ability to water, you have a much better chance of keeping those areas green and productive year round. Many native plants are "drought tolerant" and will survive the 3-ish months that the PNW doesn't typically see much rain. A small handful of well-timed drinks of water through the dry months are more than enough to keep a native garden thriving.
One of the best things about many native PNW plants is they have a built-in seed dispersal mechanism called RDF - Really Delicious Fruit. (this isn't a real term, please don't try to Google it)
Wildlife consumes the fruit, then "deposits" the seeds (which are not typically digestible) elsewhere in a ball of "fertilizer." Hopefully you can fill in the reason for the quotes on your own.
Native tribes would readily gather these fruits to add to their diets. PNW native plants like Serviceberry, Oregon Crabapple, Evergreen Huckleberry, and Thimbleberry are among the many edible native plants that thrive in our native soils. Plant something that looks great in your yard in the spring and tastes great in the summer.
OSU has a PDF of their native plant recommendations when considering gardening west of the Cascade Mountains. This comprehensive guide is mainly focused on the Willamette Valley, with a complete list of the best flowers, shrubs, and trees that compliment any garden or landscape.
This website is chalk full of information about every type of Native plant the PNW has to offer, including natural distribution, growth habits, planting tips, and much more. The information gathered together here is from WSU and OSU and other choice educational databases, so you can rest easy knowing you're getting great advice.
The Native Plant Society of Oregon was founded in 1961 to promote the independent research and conservation of Oregon's native plant life. Through the years they've gained quite the knowledge about the different growing regions here in Oregon. There are 13 different chapters, so be sure to check out your local chapter for advice on growing natives in your area!
For those of you gardening in the Great Basin (Bend, K-Falls, Madras), NPSO's High Desert chapter is focused on your specific region and has a ton of great resources for you to get started with native plants in your growing region. Many of our plants here are adapted to a coastal environment, so may not perform as well in arid high desert environments.
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