What is GROW NATIVE VANCOUVER?
"Fall means it's time to plant native plants. All of them."
The rains have finally come and it feels like it became fall overnight. Fall means it’s time to plant native plants. All of them. Wildflowers are best planted from seed right now on an appropriately prepared area (more on that in a minute), evergreen and fruiting shrubs, native trees and groundcovers, you name it. Fall is the best time to plant. It allows transplants time to get some good root growth in and allows wildflower seeds that need cold stratification exposure to the Pacific Northwest winter to germinate in the spring. Growing up on a farm in the Midwest, I learned after I moved here that you have to rewire your brain and your way of thinking when it comes to fall planting. In most parts of the world and for a lot of plants, fall planting is a bad idea because winters elsewhere are typically so much more harsh. Not true in Vancouver. The ground almost never freezes in the city and if it does freeze, it doesn’t freeze very deep or for very long. Most plants native to here are cold hardy enough to handle our average winter. The best time to plant a native meadow is now. The best time to start preparing for next year’s native meadow is also now. Fall is the time.
Our GROW NATIVE VACOUVER campaign was born out of a recognition that Vancouver can do better with respect to planting native plants. There are a lot of places in the urban landscape that could benefit from planting natives because once established, most natives will rarely need water and will typically provide food or habitat for some native animal. This year we are providing a native wildflower prairie mix from Heritage Seedlings that should provide a good mix of wildflowers that can thrive in large prairie settings as well as smaller urban sites. We have free packets available (just email me) to grow native flowers at home. These seed packets can plant 100 square feet each and are comprised of a mix of native forbs that can do well in large or small areas like yard boarders or parking strips or even in something like a large pot. We also have more seed available if you have an area you’d like to plant – contact us and let’s talk about it. We will be planting meadows in Vancouver into mid-November and there is still plenty of time to get things planted before winter sets in. This mix needs full sun (at least 6 hours, more is better) and is best started in weed free soil. Non-native grass (like the grass in all of our yards) is not a meadow’s friend. It can put a lot of pressure on a meadow and eventually choke it out. Grass needs to be removed either through smothering (with a tarp or sheet mulching) or removal (sod cutter or hand excavation). Each has pros and cons. Read more about meadow planting tips on an upcoming blog.
"The best time to plant a native meadow is now. The best time to start preparing for next year’s native meadow is also now. Fall is the time."
I’ve been growing native wildflowers (forbs) for about 10 years in Vancouver with varying degrees of success. There are some really great resources available out there that can help describe ways to prepare sites for planting a native meadow but our favorite is the Meadowscaping Handbook provided by the West Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District. This is a free resource and really speaks to typical urban landscapes and how to plan for and execute an urban meadow planting. Preparing an area adequately for a meadow installation is really the single most important factor impacting the success of a meadow in the long term.
Please note that herbicide is also a typically used method to prepare a meadow site. Don’t do it. It will take multiple applications of herbicide and you will still have grass pressure in the meadow and you’ll still have to aggressively spot spray. I know it’s faster and easier to manage with herbicides but we ALWAYS advocate for a reduction or cessation of herbicide and pesticide use. Tarping a site for 12 months will accomplish the same goal and will require in a lot fewer chemicals being added to the pollinator food chain. If you have a site you want to prepare with herbicides contact me. I’ll help you figure out a good plan B.
We recently installed a 5,000 square foot meadow with our friends at Flat Tack Farm/Sprout & Blossom Farm in Brush Prairie. It was a blast to see a well-prepared site and folks interested in learning how to plant these things. That site was smothered with a tarp for 6-7 months, about the minimum amount of time you want to do it for. The site has a lot of non-native grasses and using a native seed mix that didn’t contain grasses was important because that way if we see grass growing in the meadow it is regrowth from the old grass and needs to be removed, if possible. I don’t want you to think that all grass is bad. It’s not true. Grass has a place, but non-native traditional yard grasses are aggressive and invasive, and they will choke out meadow installations. Native grasses have a lot of benefits in meadows but for the ease of getting these things to be successful we’ve been encouraging folks to skip the grass all together. More on this meadow next spring.
My sister-in-law and I go on walks in Rose Village a lot during the week since we both work from home and we’re always looking for new ways to add plants to the landscape. On a recent walk she mentioned that she wanted to replant her parking strip with natives, and we very quickly decided to pull the sod up and plant native meadow seed mix while keeping some of the established plants as well. We hadn’t done any site prep. As you recall above, fall is the time to plant but…site preparation is key to success...so...what to do?
Sod removal with low organic sheet mulching and direct seeding should work for a quick preparation method. Then I recalled that I had purchased a sod cutter (the manual kind that you kick) a few years back for a sod removal project that never ended up happening and this project seemed like a really good way to see how quick you can actually remove urban parking strip sod. Spoiler alert, it took us maybe 20-30 minutes to tear up a 30-foot-long area with the sod cutter. It was so easy. It is definitely some manual labor, but it was pretty easy. We then put down a layer of heavy craft paper (thin cardboard or newspaper would also work) just to provide some additional grass suppression into the winter. We now have plans to put in more of these including one at my house. We will keep you posted on how these meadows progress. And don't forget to GROW NATIVE VANCOVUER!
