Native Plant Sale

Native Plants for Native Birds
By Tom Costello, Sanctuaries Director

Native Plant Sale 08 Family - Carol Gross

I spent this past weekend exploring the neighborhoods and parks of Southeast Portland with my family. Spring is here and the birds are starting to sing again, the flowers are blooming, leaves are budding out. Even with the mountains, the coast, the waterfalls, and the rainforests which bless our region I am perhaps most impressed with natural beauty that pervades our urban landscape. Rain gardens, eco-roofs, and nature-scaped yards soften the hard edges of asphalt and concrete, manage water more efficiently, provide habitat for birds and other wildlife, and create a more hospitable environment for all of us in the city.

Native plants are the cornerstone of this sustainable landscape- they are adapted to grow in our soils and climate, require less care than exotic ornamentals, and allow for natural ecological function in the landscaped environment. Come to Portland Audubon’s 14th annual Native Plant Sale Saturday, May 15 & Sunday, May16, 10 AM – 4 PM, and explore the wide variety of native plants available for your home landscaping projects. In addition to all of the benefits of landscaping with native plants – purchases at our plant sale directly support our ongoing habitat restoration efforts in our sanctuaries.

Once again our sale boasts over 100 species of native trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, bulbs, grasses, and vines to enhance your yard, garden, or acreage.  As always we will have our wonderful shopping lists on hand, painstakingly compiled by long-time Audubon volunteer Gregg Everhart. Our shopping lists provide a wealth of information on all of the plants available: typical size, growing conditions, habitat value, and even the color of the flower and fruit type. You can use the shopping list to find out what will grow in that moist, shady back corner of your yard, or which plants will help you attract butterflies and hummingbirds. More comprehensive information on individual plants is posted above plants themselves, including photographs of the plant in bloom.

As always a fine team of knowledgeable volunteers will also be on hand to help answer any and all of your botanical questions. This year we will also feature an information booth with staff from our Backyard Habitat Certification Program. In addition to all the great information on native plants you can come get the big picture on naturescaping, rain gardens, invasive plant removal, and more. Turn your own yard into a wildlife sanctuary!

A wonderful selection of books on native plants, wildlife, and nature-scaping will be available at our Nature Store.  Russell Link’s “Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest” is a great introductory text for those new to nature-scaping. The “Encyclopedia of Northwest Native Plants” by Kathleen A Robson, Alice Richter & Marianne Filbert provides comprehensive information on the flora of our region. For those who really want to explore the complex ecological systems that native plant communities support I would recommend Douglas Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home – How You Can Sustain Wildlife with native Plants.”

As a warm-up to the sale Join Judy Bluehorse Skelton on Tuesday, May 11, 7 PM, in Heron Hall for a free Nature Night presentation on our relationship with native plants as food, medicine, and more. Historically native plants were been intricately woven into the fabric of our daily lives as food medicine, shelter, and tools. Even today almost everyone of us lives in a home framed with the wood of the Douglas Fir, herbal and naturopathic medicine is well established in the mainstream, and native plants have become integral tool in sustainably managing stormwater run-off and reducing the load on our urban sewer infrastructure. Continuing to re-establish our deep connection with native plants is a key component for us in “developing healthy lifeways.”