• Home
  • About
  • Plants
    • Wildflowers
    • Grass
    • Trees
    • Shrubs
    • Deer-Resistant Native Plants
    • For Birds and Butterflies
  • Seed
  • Cuttings
  • Pricing
  • Resources
  • Contact

Derby Canyon Natives

Plant Nursery - Serving Central Washington

  • Email
  • Facebook

2016 – Up and Growing Again!

March 13, 2016 by Ted Alway

PEBA
Flower buds on Barrett’s penstemon (Penstemon barrettiae), from cuttings we rooted over the winter 

Derby Canyon Natives is now open for business.  Through March we open by appointment Monday through Friday.  Beginning Friday, April 1 (no joke!), we resume our regular retail hours of Fridays 9-5 and Saturdays 8-12 noon.

FRPU crop

A lovely little yellow bell enduring a mid-March snowfall

It’s great to be back at it, regardless of a few late snows!  We had a good snow winter, a welcome change from the past two dry winters.  As the snow melted away we soon had new growth on the hills behind the nursery; yesterday I found early blooms of yellow bells (Fritillaria pudica), pine (glacier) lily (Erythronium grandiflorum) and a low white desert parsley (Lomatium sp., likely L. gormanii).

BASA crop

Arrowleaf balsamroot seedlings, some of the very first to emerge each year

In the nursery some species germinate and emerge in late February even with snow around them; these tend to be early bloomers and shrub steppe species, including arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagitatta), bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata), and big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata).  The seeds we sowed last fall should all emerge in March, after spending the winter under a blanket of snow receiving the cold treatment most need to overcome germination inhibitors.  This is a time of anticipation, excitement and, at times, disappointment for us as the new seedlings show up: did they germinate?  Too few or too many seedlings?  Did the tricky, uncommon species appear?   We are always trying new species, that don’t show up on the web site’s listing; this year’s roster includes Brown’s peony (Paeonia brownii), hairy golden aster (Heterotheca villosa), mountain spring beauty (Claytonia megarhiza), three new Penstemon species, Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) and rose meadowsweet (Spiraea splendens).  It all has an impact on the business, as we try to meet contracts and customer needs.

CITW
Seedlings of Tweedy’s lewisia (Cistanthe tweedyi); some years the emergence is disappointing but this year there are LOTS!
PABR crop
Brown’s peony (Paeonia brownii) makes its appearance, a special and uncommon wildflower of our area
ANRO crop
Guess we sowed too many seeds of rosy pussytoes (Antennaria rosea); got some thinning to do!

It takes little time in our greenhouses (really just hoop houses with a a single layer of poly) for the extra warmth to spur on new growth in the overwintered pots of wildflowers and shrubs and show that they survived the winter.

PAMY crop

New growth on cuttings of mountain boxwood (Paxistima myrsinites)

Some plants weren’t so fortunate.  We faced large populations of voles, small rodents that moved into the nursery from the surrounding orchard and chowed down on some of their favorite foods, especially my young Garry oaks (Quercus garryana) where they destroyed nearly 75%!  My Chief of Rodent Control, Ozzie, has been reprimanded and I’m looking to hire an assistant for him before next winter; know any good mousers?

Ozzie crop

The Useless Mouser, doing what he does best

Filed Under: Featured Natives, Life at the Nursery, Native flora Tagged With: balsamroot, germination, native plants, nursery, penstemon, seedlings, Tweedy's lewisia, wildflowers

We’re On Facebook

Ted Alway, Owner

Blog Archives

  • September 2018 (1)
  • May 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (3)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (2)
  • March 2016 (1)
  • October 2015 (1)
  • September 2015 (1)
  • May 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (2)
  • March 2015 (2)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • August 2014 (2)
  • July 2014 (2)
  • June 2014 (1)
  • May 2014 (2)
  • April 2014 (2)
  • March 2014 (2)
  • February 2014 (1)
  • October 2013 (1)
  • September 2013 (1)
  • August 2013 (1)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (2)
  • April 2013 (3)
  • March 2013 (3)
  • November 2012 (2)
  • September 2012 (1)
  • August 2012 (2)
  • July 2012 (2)
  • June 2012 (2)
  • May 2012 (3)
  • April 2012 (4)
  • March 2012 (4)
  • February 2012 (2)
  • January 2012 (1)

© 2019 by Derby Canyon Natives. All rights reserved. Hosted by 3sherpas