Hi everyone. I have a few questions I suppose need answering before my growing season starts here in Oregon:
1) I am trying to convert all of my flower beds but one to a native garden. I have a lot of shade in these areas and many of them are next to my neighbors house which is VERY overgrown with blackberries, so there are a lot of critters in and out of them. But I like the critters and I want them in my yard too, so I figured that I would try and make some hospitable space for them in the middle of the city we live in. Anyone from Western Oregon/Washington who has a good idea of some plants I may want to look into?
2) My husband and I are thinking of taking this summer off and going to Mexico for the majority of the growing season. Is there anything I can or need to do which will help the chances of my garden not becoming Jumanji while we're gone?
3) I am keeping one of my beds for my favorite flowers (the one that gets the most sun) right off my deck. I need some smelly flowers in there this year though; I didn't get enough stinky flowers last summer. Any full sun flower recommendations which smell like heaven? I was thinking maybe Angel Trumpets, but that was all I could come up with.
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backerayla
- Newly Registered
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- Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 8:42 pm
- Location: Northwestern Oregon
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
I love native shade wildflowers. There's tons to choose from. A few of my favorites (that would be native for you also): include anemone, goatsbeard, wild ginger, ferns, bunchberry, dutchman's breeches, bleeding heart, tiarella, heuchera, waterleaf, trillium, false Solomon's seal.
Some of those you would have different species. Your bleeding heart is called Western bleeding heart (dicentra formosa) but similar to the one out here, fringed bleeding heart (dicentra exemia).
You can find what plants are native to your area with the NPIN Native Plant Database:
https://www.wildflower.org/plants/
Tell it what state you are in, what you are looking for (perennials, shrubs, trees, etc) your conditions like sun/shade and it will pop you up a list of native plants meeting those specs.
I like my Angel Trumpet, which I grew from seed, but I don't think it would like full sun and the flowers are pretty, but only mildly fragrant.
Fragrant flowers for sun include daffodils, hyacinth, Oriental lilies (amazingly fragrant!), sweet pea, lavender, nicotiana, moonflower. The latter two are open in the afternoon and evening, so are lovely to have somewhere where you sit out in the evening. Some of the most fragrant flowers are actually flowering shrubs, including lilac and viburnum. One viburnum shrub in bloom will perfume your whole garden! And it is a native and the flowers are followed by berries that birds like...
I'm assuming you meant the part about smells like heaven and not the part about stinky and smelly! Worth speaking carefully; you know there are flowers, mostly tropicals, which evolved to attract flies not bees as pollinators and smell like things like rotten meat....
Some of those you would have different species. Your bleeding heart is called Western bleeding heart (dicentra formosa) but similar to the one out here, fringed bleeding heart (dicentra exemia).
You can find what plants are native to your area with the NPIN Native Plant Database:
https://www.wildflower.org/plants/
Tell it what state you are in, what you are looking for (perennials, shrubs, trees, etc) your conditions like sun/shade and it will pop you up a list of native plants meeting those specs.
I like my Angel Trumpet, which I grew from seed, but I don't think it would like full sun and the flowers are pretty, but only mildly fragrant.
Fragrant flowers for sun include daffodils, hyacinth, Oriental lilies (amazingly fragrant!), sweet pea, lavender, nicotiana, moonflower. The latter two are open in the afternoon and evening, so are lovely to have somewhere where you sit out in the evening. Some of the most fragrant flowers are actually flowering shrubs, including lilac and viburnum. One viburnum shrub in bloom will perfume your whole garden! And it is a native and the flowers are followed by berries that birds like...
I'm assuming you meant the part about smells like heaven and not the part about stinky and smelly! Worth speaking carefully; you know there are flowers, mostly tropicals, which evolved to attract flies not bees as pollinators and smell like things like rotten meat....
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backerayla
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 8:42 pm
- Location: Northwestern Oregon