Photo credit:  Owen Crossmon

Your support is our soil and sunshine!

In this time of change and upheaval, from the weather to our social fabric, starting a non profit organization is a leap of faith.  With so much work to be done on so many fronts, how will our cause speak to hearts and minds? 

If you're reading this newsletter, you probably appreciate plants.  Perhaps you find hope in their simplicity, and wonder in their complexity.  Perhaps you seek solace by playing in the dirt.  And as any gardener, you celebrate every burst of new growth that you've had a part in nurturing.

In our first year as the High Desert Horticultural Center, you have given us hope that this cause is worth nurturing, and that we will grow.  We have been astounded by the interest you have expressed by volunteering, donating, signing up for news and memberships, shopping at the nursery, and eagerly engaging with us at events.  

THANK YOU for your support.  Please consider us as you plan your year-end contributions!  We cannot do this without you!

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Community Project Spotlight

Last week the Bend-LaPine School District approved a land sale to Bend-Redmond Habitat for Humanity for affordable teacher housing, and the HDHC is thrilled to be involved as a partner with Habitat for Humanity.

Landscaping is often low on the priority list of attention and planning in new developments, which means that opportunities to create a successful native plant landscape are often missed.  By getting involved early in the project, we can help create attractive, bio-diverse and low maintenance landscapes for the busy teachers who will someday call "Stone Creek Commons" home!

Eco-lawn meadow

Grass test plots

This year, HDHC partnered with Accent Landscaping and the City of Bend to create a water-wise and pollinator-friendly landscape for Volunteers in Medicine, Clinic of the Cascades (VIM). 

Onsite, Accent also installed 12 turf test plots.  The test plots were seeded with four alternative turf seed mixes:  Companion Mix (a low maintenance dwarf grass mix), Turf-type tall fescue (a rhizomatous variety), Central Oregon Micro-lawn Mix (a micro clover and dwarf grass mix), and Ecoturf (a pollinator meadow mix of perennial flowering plants and fescues).

Over the next year, three levels of irrigation will be applied to the plots to determine the potential water savings of these specific turf alternatives .  The results will provide valuable data for local governments as they evaluate code updates and respond to anticipated water resources legislation at the state level.    

“We are excited to be the test-site for this project,” says Kat Mastrangelo, executive director at VIM. “As a healthcare facility with patients who are low-income and uninsured, we know that people’s physical environment impacts their overall health and well-being. This project will illustrate how a healthy, natural landscape can improve livability for all of us in central Oregon.”

HDHC will follow the experiment and provide updates along the way!

Water use for landscaping is at the top of the HDHC priority list, as well as the City of Bend's water resource department.  We would all appreciate your participation in this brief survey about water in Bend.

Plant highlight: 

Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis)

Q:  Is juniper an invasive species or a native tree that belongs in our local ecology?

A:  Western juniper is a native tree that is highly successful without mitigation

       by fire or management.

The status of J. occidentalis as an invasive species or weed is sometimes debated, but research has documented the existence of juniper in central Oregon since the end of the
Pleistocene, 12,000 to 15,000 years ago (Hansen, 1947).  So why are these trees often demonized as scrub and grassland over-taking, water-sucking weeds?

Rapid expansion of western juniper throughout its range has been attributed to many factors, but primarily to fire suppression since the mid-1800’s (Belsky, 1996; R. F. J. A. R.
Miller, 1999; R. F. P. E. W. Miller, 1994).  With their disease and pest resistance and drought tolerance, these trees can be so successful, they crowd out other native plants and associated wildlife.  They are nevertheless a key species of our high desert.  

Current values of western juniper range from key wildlife habitat, to specialty lumber and aesthetics.  A variety of animals rely on juniper for cover and food.  American robin, cedar waxwings and many other bird species rely on the cones over the winter.

In our gardens, juniper duff is an excellent top dressing, rich with beneficial bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, and great for moisture retention.

Plus, isn't it entertaining to watch the robins try to fly after indulging in fermented juniper berries in the springtime?

Juniper, Sage, Rabbitbrush & Time

One of the considerations inherent in native landscaping is the concept of seral stage.  The word of the day included in this newsletter is Sere – defined essentially as a plant community characteristic of a specific stage in the development of a site.  A typical native plant community moves through series of stages that are characterized by a group of plants that represent a specific sere in the progression.  For example, rabbitbrush is an early seral species in our area (previously referred to as pioneer species) that, in part, provides the structural and biological basis for future seral stages – i.e. sagebrush and associated grasses and forbs (perennials). This brings up the concept of ecological thresholds, but we’ll save that discussion for a future newsletter.

A common idea is that a site or plant community moves through a relatively defined series of seral stages (seres) until it reaches a climax condition – the point at which mature and old-growth plants define the final progression of a community.  That concept has largely been disproven, mainly because of, in some cases, disturbance, and in other cases because of the physiology and life cycle of “climax” species.  Generally, native plant communities are always in a stage of change.  They tend to be dynamic systems without ever really reaching a steady state. 

But how does this all relate to native landscaping?  When a property is developed there is a huge amount of disturbance.  Excavation, vehicles, equipment use, people, building materials, garbage, and all the things associated with developing a site severely alter the physical, chemical, hydrologic, and environmental conditions of a property. 

Grey rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa)

Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)

Everything from soil microbes to exposure to wind patterns to subsurface water movement are altered as a result of development.  From an ecological perspective, this kicks the seral stage back to the beginning.  The plants that move in on their own – non-native weeds, rabbitbrush, cheat grass, etc. – reflect those changes but contribute carbon and stimulate the development of soil structure and biology that will eventually support later seral stages.

Homeowners and property managers generally have a different expectation for the appearance of a landscape.  A property covered by rabbitbrush and cheat grass doesn’t normally provide the aesthetic quality expected in an urban landscape!  So we design mid to late-seral plant communities that are appropriate for the location of the property, but recognize that the environmental conditions of a site after construction provide unique microclimates or the potential to create unique microclimates that expand the plant palette of an individual project.  Simply said, construction of a building on a property allows us to use more plants and a wider variety of plants than would have been appropriate prior to development. 

To me, working to design and build a landscape that reflects both the overlying environmental setting of a property while adding plants that are well adapted to the conditions on a property after it’s developed is the fun part.  Combining the science and the art to create a unique landscape that supports soil health and reduces resource dependency while providing habitat and aesthetic values for the owners, wildlife, and pollinators is immensely satisfying.   The beauty and resource conservation possible through this approach is truly amazing.  Imbedding these ideas and techniques into the mainstream landscaping industry is one of our primary missions, and our work with the City of Bend and other partners throughout the region are helping make that a reality. 

© Rick Martinson, PhD

Term of the day: 

Sere

Sere (noun): a series of ecological communities formed in ecological succession

- Merriam-Webster

A seral community is an intermediate stage found in ecological succession in an ecosystem advancing towards its climax community. - Wikipedia

As explained in Rick's article above, disturbance of land during development "kicks the seral stage back to the beginning".  In central Oregon, disturbed soils inevitably welcome unwelcomed invaders such as Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) as well as attractive natives such as Gray rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa).   In created landscapes, we can fast-forward the stages a wild landscape would go through by selecting plants with known associations and improving soil conditions.  This establishes plant communities that are healthier and generally more weed-resistant than typical landscapes.

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Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides)