INPROGRESS My Wetland and Pollinator Garden
i want nice plants with pretty little bugs that oughta be here.
DONE Manage Starts
Put natives in the seed blocks on trays on :
small soil blocks:
| w. goldenrod | douglas spiria | oregon sunshine | rosy checkermallow |
| yarrow | leafy bracht aster | douglas sagewort | celery-leaved lovage |
large soil blocks:
| broadleaf lupine | great camas | showy milkweed | fernleaf biscuitroot |
| bigleaf lupine | great camas | showy milkweed | fernleaf biscuitroot |
not my pics yet :)
great camas
References
perennial rhizomic
2ft tall
they love the wetland bits
the beautiful blue flowers
spring blooms
may take a couple of years to flower
broadleaf lupine
perennial full sun exposure, mid-summer bloom 3-4ft height
little to no stratification but scarify for spring planting 3-5 seeds per pot 1/8"-1/4"
bigleaf lupine
perennial full sun exposure, mid-summer bloom 3-4ft height
little to no stratification but scarify for spring planting 3-5 seeds per pot 1/8"-1/4"
Showy milkweed
References
host species to monarch butterflies
Ascelpias speciosa
need to be winter sewn with long stratification
yarrow
References
perennial
summer little white flowers
2-3ft tall
summer-fall bloom
fernleaf biscuitroot
References
perennial wildflower
herbalist too; thick taproot
3-5ft tall
60-90 day stratification
douglas spiria
Spiraea douglasii
northwest native perennial
3-6ft height
rhizomic
month stratification
can become dominant in wetland habitats
douglas sagewort
4-5 feet high
native to riverbeds and will be vigorous in the water area dead stems cut back in winter resprout in spring
medicinal
28 butterflies
rosy checkermallow
sidalcea virgata
perennial sun to part shade bloom mid spring bloom to 2ft
3-12 periodic stratification shalow sew cover lightly
celery-leaved lovage
ligusticum apiifolium
perennial groundcover sun to shade bloom mid summer 2-4ft height
10-12 weeks stratification shallow sew cover lightly
fall stratify or plant in the fall -- (woops)
leafy-bracht aster
perennial
2ft mid-summer bloom
purple-blue flowers in summer
native bee pollinators browse it
oregon sunshine
perennial
2ft tall yellow flowers
native bee pollinators
western goldenrod
References
perennial
4-6ft tall
small yellow flowers
late summer and autumn flowering
Garden Design
L shape with rounded inside
Toward the back fence is
camas tall and wet
spiria
sagewort
Middle area
showy milkweed
celery-leaved lovage
fernleaf biscuitroot
western goldenrod in the back toward
lupine tall on each edge of the L
Around the herb planter
all the asters
all the checkermallow
yarrow
groundcover and bushes in the oak duff
wild ginger
oceanspray
osoberry
red flowering currant
NEXT weed the bed
NEXT irrigation setup
NEXT measure the irrigation runs
NEXT buy timer and drippers and some valves and a cutting tool
Resources
//oregonflora.org/garden/index.php
wetland plan specific stuff
//www.eugene-or.gov/DocumentCenter/View/3473/Wetlands-Plan-Cover
//www.eugene-or.gov/DocumentCenter/View/28159/West-Eugene-Wetlands-Guide?bidId=
//www.eugene-or.gov/DocumentCenter/View/56793/Lane-and-Water-in-West-Eugene
//drive.google.com/file/d/1IyCWOOaBxbcrVnH8NvK4gCirMGYNDAEV/view
Diane Steeck DSteeck@eugene-or.gov info@wetlandsconservancy.org
Emily Hamblin, Natural Areas Steward with the Office of Sustainability at the University of Oregon and head of the willamette river natural area trust DSteeck@eugene-or.gov
INPROGRESS My Herb Planter
DONE kill some grass
DONE build/buy raised beds
NEXT buy more soil
NEXT go down2earth and get some herb starts
INPROGRESS herb planting
Set up a few starts in the little greenhouse on
not my pics, hopefully i get to exchange them with mine over time.
Inventory
Dill
Sage
summer savory
Italian Basil
Thai Basil
Purple Basil
Thyme
Rosemary
Calendula
NEXT Fill planter
need to get some cedar chip or something for the bottom of the tub
WAITING Transplant
let's see how my starts all go, maybe i can just breka them all up soon in the ground
maybe get some little planters and make some plants for the garage sale
DONE build mini greenhouse
DONE buy starter pots
INPROGRESS My Trees
INPROGRESS Inventory
NEXT draw it out on graph paper or excel...
Front Yard
Plum near the door
oregon grape near the door
japanese cherry out past the mailboxes
apple-ish by the driveway
evergreen
Back Yard
Lilac
two western red cedar
dogwood
apple and/or pear
plum
cherry trees
INPROGRESS The fruit trees
planted two fruit trees that i'll trestle between two three t-posts i pounded in
one asian pear one apple
INPROGRESS treat cedar rust
bought sulfur fungicide
pruning schedule
apple & pear & cherry & plum (fruit trees) in fall
lilac dogwoods, etc in spring
NEXT establish fertilizing schedule
need to make sure i'm using good stuff right stuff, etc
NEXT document/log fruiting schedule
NEXT document/log flower schedule
OSU Extension Stuff for trees
Training and pruning your home orchard | OSU Extension Service
References
Growing tree fruits and nuts at home | OSU Extension Service
References
Before you decide to plant fruit or nut trees, ask yourself:
Will I have the time and interest to spray, prune, and otherwise care for these trees every year?
Will I have the time and interest to harvest and use the possibly overabundant fruit?
Will my garden have enough room?
Is the soil suitable for the trees?
INPROGRESS grapes
have those grapes near the concrete pad, have some on the side of the house... tried to trim them back in Dec 2025 to get something that'll fruit next year... idk it's hard!!!
OSU Extension stuff for grapes
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/topic/gardening/berries-fruit/resources
Don’t be timid when pruning grapes | OSU Extension Service
References
gotta prune back to train the arbor
Growing Table Grapes | OSU Extension Service
References
After the first growing season (when the goal is to grow the trunk as tall as possible), select shoots along each trunk to distribute fruiting canes along the trunk’s length. If a trunk is not tall enough yet, use the topmost shoot to extend the trunk in the current season. Repeat this process until the framework of the vine has been established (each vine’s trunk goes up the side and along the top to the middle of the arbor). Have short fruiting canes alternate on the left and right sides of each trunk, so that shoots (leaves and shade) and fruit are well distributed along the trunk and arbor.
Prune grapes back to first year wood.
If the vine has a decent trunk and looks like it had a good framework in the past, you might be able to save it. Prune it heavily by removing most of the wood, leaving only about 40 buds on 1-year-old wood. This wood might still be high up in a tree, but it’s needed to support new shoot growth.
revitalize grapes by swapping in a new trunk
With such a severe pruning, the vine may produce new suckers at the head of the vine or at the base of the trunk. If this happens, you will have new shoots that will become your fruiting canes next winter. You can use a sucker to replace the trunk. In that case, you would remove the older wood (up in the tree, in this example) the winter following the severe pruning.
Grape variety identification | OSU Extension Service
References
Compost
THE EARTH MACHINE
2025-03-25_19-28-47_earth_machine_manual.pdf
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/soil-compost
NEXT stir
NEXT add browns, add starter
WAITING vegetables
some day maybe. gotta make some herbal teas first.
Vegetable Growing Guides - Cornell
References
Garden Updates
The native garden starts are in the ground!
Today on , I took everything off their shelves and put my seed starts for My Wetland and Pollinator Garden in the ground.
Not much to look at yet, I suppose, but I did manage to keep this plot of the yard mostly free of grass and noxious weeds, I did have to rip out a bunch of morning glory/bindweed this morning before it got too hot.
The seed starts were a mixed bag, the end of February was way too late for some of these to germinate, really they needed to stratify over winter, but it was fun.
overall, I managed to germinate the yarrow, goldenrod, spiria, sagewort, bigleaf lupine, and showy milkweed. My friend Suzi also gave me quite a lot of showy milkweed, rosy checkermallow, and oregon sunshine. Barring one poor desiccated corpse, my checkermallow and sunshine failed to come up, so that was a nice treat and they are going to do really well back there.
I'm going to spread a bunch of seed this fall and start some cold stratifying in fall, but this was a good first experiment in starting to claim back some of that back sunny patch for natives. Next week I'm planning to drive out to Doak Creek Nursery and get an osoberry and oceanspray and red flowering currant to stick along the fences and in the front yard, and some ferns for the wet spots.
As for My Herb Planter, well it didn't take quite so well. I'm probably gonna buy some from Down to Earth when I get back, the only things I managed to keep alive were a shitload of fennel, sage, and rosemary. they'll all be quite happy out in the sun but the spot where i put my germination tent was a bit too sunny and became an open shelf for whatever wetland wildland cedar fungi came through, and they had most of the stuff I was looking forward to for lunch...
The first fruit on my backyard trees are coming in, some varieties of plum, some pears, and the first flush of crabapples. 😄
My Herb Planter and Wetland and Pollinator Garden are starting to germinate :)
Last week I started a bunch of seeds in my greenhouse for a little bit of an herb garden and native plant corner in the wet part of my backyard. After a week, some things are coming alive:
The western goldenrod has started, the rest of the natives aren't really coming alive and may not given the weather:
the California Poppy is doing well:
some of the other decorative annuals are waking up too
the Thyme is going and the sage just started to germinate:
the dill
and the summer savory
weeded out My Wetland and Pollinator Garden and some of the stuff Suzi and I started from seed are doing really well.
there was a ton of "morning glory" and grasses I ripped out, and dandelion I dug out.
the yarrow, douglas sagewort, oregon sunshine, and rosy checkermallow all taking off nicely. :)