Preparing for Planting
Posted in Woodland Landscaping on February 7th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to commentI have never had difficulty in dropping large sums of money on plants. Even when renting homes, I couldn’t seem to pass the first month and suppress the need to rework the landscape, usually just to make it livable. Now, I am a place with no end to the room in which I can plant. And plant I will, starting with 314 plants, a mix of native shrubs and trees, fruit trees, and berry bushes.
My focus will be lake and garden. In and around the garden will go a host of fruit trees and various berries, some of which I’ve never heard of before but seemed tasty enough in the catalog:
| Medlar – Breda Giant |
1 |
| Persimmon – Meadler |
4 |
| Peach – Oregon Curl Free |
4 |
| Captivator Gooseberry (Ribes hirtellum) |
4 |
| Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) |
1 |
| Raspberry ‘Fall Gold’ |
4 |
| Meeker Raspberry (Rubus sp.) |
5 |
| Cherry Red Currant (Ribes sativum) |
3 |
| White Imperial Currant (Ribes sativum) |
3 |
| Jostaberry (Black Currant x Gooseberry) |
3 |
| Lingonberry |
25 |
| Titan Seaberry – female (Hippophae rhamnoides) |
2 |
| Seaberry – Male (Hippophae rhamnoides) |
1 |
| Tristar Strawberry (Fragaria sp.) |
25 |
| Alpine Strawberry ‘Gold Leaf’ |
5 |
| Patriot Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) |
2 |
The medlar is one of my experiments. The soft, brown fruits are described as having a custard apple flavor, almost too good to be true I fear. Seaberries are touted as a common berry in Europe that produces a profusion of golden fruit high in Vitamin C; couldn’t turn that down. The blueberries were chosen for their tolerance of moist soils and will go to exploit an otherwise neglected area by the garden. The other berries will be distributed in various places around both garden and barn as their cultivation requirements demand. They will go well, I hope, with the wild Southern cherries that my father grew from North Carolina seed 30 years ago, and the equally aged grape arbor that I recently pruned up.
The rest are mostly natives, which will be tucked into various locations about the property with emphasis on the lake.
| Shore Pine |
10 |
Around barn |
| Cascara |
5 |
Mix in alder grove by garden |
| Ninebark |
5 |
Edges of lake |
| Pacific Silver Fir |
10 |
Around the barn where the sun is good and soils are well-drained |
| Sitka Alder |
10 |
South end of the lake in drier soils |
| Snowberry |
10 |
Cluster along sitting area by lake |
| Mock Orange |
10 |
Various places along the edge of the woods |
| Twinberry |
10 |
Dry slopes along the driveway |
| Kinnikinnick |
10 |
Dry places along edges of landscaping |
| Pacific Dogwood |
15 |
Strategic locations along driveway to accent Douglas fir |
| Vine Maple |
20 |
Pathway to lake and framing edges near south end |
| Nootka Rose |
20 |
Around the edges of the lake and on the garden border as living fence |
| American Cranberry |
30 |
Around the garden fence |
| Red Osier Dogwood |
50 |
Around the south edges of the lake along with yellow dogwood |
The natives are courtesy of the Pierce County Conservation District, whose annual plant sales offer excellent deals on bareroot stock. The remainder are from either Burnt Ridge Nursery in Onalaska, or One Green World in Molalla, Oregon.