Hello all,

My name is Rob, and I live in Portland. I'm really interested in native plants, and most of my garden has Willamette Valley species. Some of my plants just show up, like a found a nice incense cedar seedling growing in my front yard. Nice to get some freebies

My latest project is getting some Pacific dogwood trees established, and I'm going to try propagating them from seeds and cuttings. They are almost impossible to find at nurseries, so I just have seeds and bare root seedlings available.

Anyway, looking forward to learning from everybody here. Cheers

Warm welcome nuttallii. I am up in Washington and also quite interested in natives.

Hi nuttallii,

I am an occasional participant here. I hope you enjoy the site! I am in Washington, also, and like natives. I am pushing the definition of "native" a bit, and I'm planting "natives" that only go as far north as Oregon.

Ali

Thank you for the warm welcome, Deb and Ali! Have the moles taken over your yards yet? I fight them every summer I want to plant more, but I'm running out of room. Just planted a few more pacific dogwoods and Blue elderberry. Hope they survive!

Take care, Rob

Welcome nuttallii (clever name!), I also garden near Seattle, but I think Portland has the nicest climate in the country- lucky you!

I plant anything that strikes my fancy, I do make an effort to include natives, just yesterday I planted some bunchberry and cascade penstemon. I got them a few months ago from a huge yearly native plant sale put on by the local conservation district, which is the absolute best source here for really inexpensive native plants. They get them in quantity, many are bare root in big bundles like they use for reforestation projects. The reason I am telling you this is they sell Pacific Dogwoods.
Maybe there is something like that near you?

On the other hand, it is especially fun to grow things yourself from seed. I have some Sourwood saplings I grew from seed. I also have two I got from a local nursery before that, that had been grown from cuttings. It turns out that is a really bad idea because they don't want to grow up, they want to grow sideways!

I tried some Cornus controversa 'variegata' cuttings. Failed. I finally found a sapling to buy, and it will soon be big enough to try again from my own tree. C. controversa 'variegata' is supposed to be particularly difficult to propagate, hopefully the native one is easier. Speaking of which, I have some Hormex #8 rooting hormone, I might get some of the stronger strength for that project. Have you ever tried it or tried the gel?

Howdy! I'm up near the NW tip of Lake Washington, in Lake Forest Park.

Hello Pistil!
The climate is nice here, but the summers seem to get hotter every year (scary stuff). We have friends in Seattle, so we are up there often, and hope to see some Mariners games too. Funny, I've been looking for some bunchberry to plant under our trees. I know what you mean about growing from seed. I have some baby douglas firs in the nursery now. My dogwood seeds are in the fridge, but hope to plant them soon. I've never tried growing cornus controversa. I have used the Dip 'N Grow plant hormone for ocean spray and mock orange cuttings with success. Hope you have success!

Hi Brinybay!
Nice to meet you! Beautiful area, where you live.

Well if you come this way regularly, you should check out the native plant sale- they already have a date set for next year!
The bunchberry are WAY cheaper than any nursery around here. You can pre-order on-line during the winter, then you go pick them up, kind of a fun outdoorsy thing to do in February.

http://snohomishcd.org/annual-...

Thanks for the tip! Hopefully, I can make it to next year's sale. Bosky Dell Natives is a great place for PNW natives, if you're ever in the Portland area.