Meadow and Sunny Hillside Update

Fall color on the hillside

It's been just over a year since I planted a meadow with native seed mix and native plants around the edges. I also spent a lot of time last year on the sunny hillside just above the meadow. I'm now thinking of this whole area as my mostly native border (plus berries and spring bulbs). It's a big area, probably about a quarter of the whole yard, and furthest from the house and water outlet, so hardest to maintain.

Sunny hillside from the bottom

I did very little on the sunny hillside this year, just let everything grow. No water except the drip line on the blueberries and raspberries. I ended up moving some of the lewisia and probably will move the rest, they get buried under other plants. Now that the raspberries are really growing, the lupine are too big, I can't get up the steps between them. I dug out one of the lupine and will need to take out the other two or keep them well trimmed back.

Now that the ground is starting to soften up, I planted these on the lower part of the hillside:

• Roemer's fescue - a bunch more, grown from seed
• Xerophylum tenas, beargrass - 2 grown from seed
• 3 Erigeron karvinskianus, labelled as Oregon fleabane but now I see that's erroneous
• Echinacea p. 'Pow Wow Wild Berry'
• Echinacea hybrida 'Cheyenne Spirit'

Meadow, looking south

Meadow, looking north

The meadow has more surviving lawn grass than I had hoped, plus some other obvious weeds, so I've done a little weeding a few times. I can see more of the native perennials growing in though so I'm hoping they will take off next year. I've also continued to dig out false bamboo from the back corner, it is close to gone. Plus a lot of watering over the summer, apparently I picked a bad year to plant so many bushes and trees! But I've continued to plant a few more native perennials in and around the meadow:

• 2 allium cernuum, nodding onion
• 1 solidago rugosa 'Fireworks', goldenrod
• Asclepias speciosa, milkweed - a bunch grown from seed
• Chamaenerion angustifolium, fireweed - a small clump transplanted from elsewhere in the yard

Goldenrod

Milkweed seedling

Also planted in the the shade under the bottom edge of the flowering currant:

• Tellimia grandiflora, fringecup
• Trillium ovatum
• Oxalis oregana
• Asarum caudatum, wild ginger
• Decentra formosa, bleeding heart

Bleeding heart and wild ginger

Oxalis and bleeding heart

Whew, the plants add up to a lot more than I thought and I suspect I'm missing some too.

Next year, I need to tackle the other side of the hillside, get the Oregon grape and flowering currant under control and plant groundcover under them to keep out the grass and weeds.

Planting a meadow and native bushes

Snow! - in early December

This is a catch up post, one last update from the year. Remember my solarization project? I'm not sure we had the best summer for it this year, 2015 would have been better as it was much hotter. Nonetheless, I proceeded with removing the plastic in mid-September then waited a few weeks to see what would grow, and used very selective application of Roundup on a few weeds that tried to grow. There weren't very many weeds, more in the back corner than the front section, but there was some grass trying to grow which is concerning.

At the end of September, I spread a very thin layer of mulch and planted a mix of native wildflowers and grasses in the front section. Carefully, so as to not disturb the soil underneath and stir up seeds that may not have been killed by solarization. I did the same in the back corner in early October, after I planted the shore pines (more about that below). Both areas had seeds sprouting almost immediately, which may be good or may be bad if they don't survive the winter.

Front section, after planting

Along the edges of the front section, I planted a few native bulbs:

• brodiaea coronaria
• camassia leichtlinii
• camassia quamash

I also planted a wildflower only seed mix in a small section of the middle, over the non-native bulbs that are already there. This area didn't have plastic on it this summer, but it had cardboard for a couple of months. I suspect that won't be enough to kill the grass and weeds, but I didn't want to do anything more that might kill the bulbs.

Then I went native plant shopping in early October and picked up a bunch of plants. I planted native bushes around the bottom edge of the front meadow and across the middle. I'm trying to soften the green wall of arborvitae, and connect with the flowering currant on the south end of the hillside.

• 2 vaccinium ovatum, evergreen huckleberry
• 2 oemleria cerasiformis, Indian plum or osoberry
• 1 holodiscus discolor, oceanspray
• 3 spiraea densiflora, subalpine spirea
• 3 symphoricarpos albus, snowberry
• 2 vaccinum parvifolium, red huckleberry
• 1 rhododendron occidentale, western azalea

Native bushes, early October

More native bushes, early October

Looking north from the middle, early October

In the back corner, I planted two pinus contora (shore pine). They are too close to some of the hazelnuts, but I'll move those once I figure out where I want them.

After planting the shore pines

And, on the bottom edge of the sunny hillside, where they will blend into the meadow:

• 3 festeca roemeri, Roemer's fescue
• 3 viola adunca, early-blue violet

I already had a few camassia and blue eyed grass at the bottom of the hillside too. I need more plants there, but that'll wait until spring.

Now the waiting game! I'm definitely worried about how many weeds will be in the meadow, since I can see shotweed growing now plus California poppies spread from the hillside above, but need to wait and see what happens in the spring. The only chore still to do in the winter is haul more mulch to put around the bushes. But the area has certainly changed a lot since last spring!

May 26 vs. December 30

Back corner, today

Looking north from the back corner, today

Progress on the hillside, part 3

I'm long overdue for a progress update about the sunny hillside. Since my last update, I dug out and planted the middle section between the blueberries and new raspberries. Again, the cardboard worked very well at killing the grass, I dug it out only because there was old landscape fabric underneath that I needed to get rid of.

First, the area right above the blueberries, where I started a rock stream.

Plants:

• Bear grass - Xerophyllum tenax 
• Penstemon davidsonii 
• Harebell - Campanula rotundifolia 
• Sedum spathulifolium
• Thrift - armeria aliacea 'Dusseldorf Pride', and armeria meritima

Then the lower part of the rock stream.

Plants:

• Oregon stone crop - sedum oreganum
• Lewisia 'Regenbogen'
• Lewisia columbiana 'Rupicola' - added after the above picture, I bought one plant and divided into five
• Roemer's fescue - Festuca idahoensis subsp. Roemeri
• Thrift - armeria aliacea 'Dusseldorf Pride' 

And finally, the rest of the middle.

Plants:

• Salvia, 'Hot Lips'
• Penstemon, two 'Rocky Mountain' and one unknown variety
• Lupine - lupinus, 'My Castle'
• Kinnikinnick, 'Vancouver Jade'
• Wild strawberries, transplanted from nearby

The plants along the rock stream are all native, those in the middle are "near" native - there are varieties that are native, but not easy to find. The one exception is the hot lips salvia, which I couldn't resist. They are all drought resistant, once established. I have a drip line on the blueberries and will add one for the raspberries, but I don't plan to regularly water anything else on this hillside.

Everything is growing well so far, including a few weeds - time to weed and mulch!

Sedum and thrift

Hot lips salvia

Penstemon

Lewisia

Wild strawberries spreading near the raspberries

I had planted a few packets of wildflower seeds and poppy seeds along the strip at the bottom of the hillside and was disappointed that only a few were coming up. Suddenly, they've all sprung up and getting ready to bloom.

There is still a section of cardboard at the top of the hill, which is probably next on my list. I have a few stepping stones, matching those going up the hill, to create a pathway across the top. The grape trellis at the top is a problem though, it's going to block the path until we get it reconfigured - maybe in the fall. 

I also just started a new experiment with two large sections of clear plastic - more about that soon!