A landscape, in nature, is a whole, functioning system, capable of perpetuating itself, through out the seasons and years, relying entirely on its own conditions and the cycling of energy and resources occurring on and within it. This is also the definition of a modern sustainable landscape. Ideally they require no inputs or energies supplied from offsite aside from the sun, precipitation and the normal cycling onsite of nutrients and water. A human made, contrived landscape, as all of those built by us today are, may be ‘judged’ by how well they function on ‘their own’, by how well they fit this ideal. Labor and outside inputs necessary to maintain a landscape are then indicators of how out of balance, how far from ‘ideal’ nature and genuine sustainability, a landscape is. A contrived landscape, which ignores the relationships integral to a healthy landscape community ‘demands’ more and more maintenance and support. Given its design and use, a landscape which ignores its site and relationship requirements will deteriorate from the intended design, losing to death component plants while gaining, increasingly, more unwanted available weed species. Design, conditions and use are essential to determine, in this sense, what a ‘good’ landscape is.

Redmond is east of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. For those of you who don’t know, the eastern 2/3 of the state is markedly drier and colder than the wetter and milder, more well known and populous, western third, moderated as it is by the Pacific. The entire west coast has a mediterranean precipitation pattern, warm dry summers, cool wet winters. obviously cooling as you move north. The Cascade mountains disrupt this pattern giving our local region a more continental influenced pattern of rainfall. Redmond lies in the rain shadow of the Cascades and is in fact desert, receiving around 8 inches of precipitation annually. (Our climate Koppen BSk, dry overall with steppe conditions and cold arid winters, continental). At 3,000′ elevation we are part of what is often referred to as Oregon’s high desert.

Central Oregon, made up by Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties, has an area of 7,833 sq.mi. and a total of 247,493 people, about 17% of the state’s population. It is one of the fastest growing regions in Oregon increasing almost 28% from 2010 to 2022 while the state as a whole grew 10.6% over the same period. 38,000 live in Redmond, about twelve times the population of 1961 when my family first moved here. It is about 15 miles north of Bend with its population of 100,000, about nine times its population in ’61’. That 28% increase in population, is reflective of the regions desirability as a place to live…and play…and has exerted considerable pressure on the housing market resulting in outrageous housing pricing and a dearth of ‘affordable’ options. This has resulted in a huge increase in use of, and pressure on, our publicly owned natural areas, more than a few of which are being ‘loved’ to death as they get stomped into the ground. Deserts and adjacent alpine areas are fragile. Their characteristic greatly reduced growth rates mean that any healing/recovery from over use and abuse is slow, or may not happen at all. Having been gone for most of the last 40 years, the deterioration is evident to me. On the positive side there is considerable support for local Parks.

My wife and I are in NW Redmond, west of Dry Canyon which contained a river for 300,000 years, blocked some 78,000 years ago by the Basalt of Bend,a lava flow from the Newberry Volcano south of Bend, followed by another flow 3,000 years later that partially filled the canyon all of the way to Lake Billy Chinook. Our immediate area not long ago was still ‘hobby’ farms and smaller acreages, but has been rapidly suburbanizing over the last ten years. Across the street from us, still under construction, is 4 acre, Spruce Park. I began writing this critique in March, late winter here. Most landscape work ceases locally with the onset of winter, the ground freezing (Water lines are installed 3′ deep). Hydroseeding of the large central turf area didn’t happen last Fall as scheduled, the bales of material were stacked under shelter all winter (The hydroseeding was done in mid-April with low temperatures still dropping to the mid and low 20’sºF). 

Part of my ‘old’ job with Portland Parks and Recreation was doing horticultural design review and construction inspection on capital projects. I can’t help but do it now when I come across projects so that’s what I’m going to do here. I have no connections to the contractor, the designing landscape architect or the City of Redmond’s Park system. As readers of my blog know most of my career has been in the Portland, Oregon area. I grew up here in Central Oregon so the landscape and conditions are familiar to me. I worked for several different landscape contractors here years ago so while I’m not completely up to speed I understand landscape  construction and maintenance and have a deep interest in plant communities and how they respond to what we do. I’m going to take you through the process as I used to, although in more detail and with more explanation. I’ll focus mostly on the horticulture and limit my critique of the aesthetic to myself. In my old position landscape architects were resistant to criticism especially regarding their aesthetic and design, and discounted our horticultural concerns. 

Let’s Look at Trees…and Grass Turf

‘Autumn Blaze Maple’, Acer x freemanii, is used here extensively, a hybrid of two maples native to the much wetter eastern North America. The ‘parent’s’ of the cross are the ubiquitous, Red Maple, Acer rubrum and the rapid growing Silver Maple, Acer saccharinum. There are 4 dozen+ of this hybrids planted in the park, and perimeter approach from the west. (The same selection is used in our new development and the adjacent development to our east. This tree is listed as one of relatively few on the approved street tree lists of municipalities in central Oregon…and it is ‘everywhere’.) It is a ‘product’ of the mesic deciduous woodland forest back east with its pattern of summer rains. That’s almost as far as you can possibly get, short of looking at the tropics, from the desert conditions we have here. That said this is an extremely adaptable hybrid. Yes, it is cold hardy here, but cold hardiness is not alone a good indicator of appropriateness for a local landscape, especially if we are at all interested in water conservation and creating sustainable landscapes…This is an ‘urban’ park, with irrigated turf grass containing a number of these while many are located in beds, which will presumably receive much less irrigation than the turf areas. The park will serve as a gathering place for the neighborhood for casual activities. 

Large lawn areas are well suited for human activities, if such activities aren’t too intensive and good cultural practices are consistently employed. Other planted surfaces are much poorer in terms of their abilities to withstand active use. Turf areas will always require significant supplemental irrigation here as rainfall is woefully inadequate. Drought stressed, dormant turf, is far less resistant to damage from concentrated active use. The soil here is also low in nutrients so turf will require regular fertilization, particularly of nitrogen which local soils have little capacity to retain. An application of compost at planting helps only for a very limited time as it breaks down quickly. Regular mowing is a must, at an appropriate height to maintain a thicker turf as well. Cutting it too short or cutting it infrequently weakens it. There is also the issue of inevitable weed invasion, which itself can become problematic.

Grass turf is essentially a monoculture and as such is a very unstable plant ‘community’. It’s not a community at all. A plant community is comprised of multiple species, each of which occupy different niches, that while competing with each other also collectively support conditions they all depend upon. Turf-grasses require outside resources to maintain the imbalance, in the form of good cultural practices. All of this effort is often deemed worth it for parks, grass turf being the best functional surface. Other alternatives include various hard surfaces and artificial turf. Poorly maintained turf will fail and will do so even faster with active use.

Grass turf provides a level of shock absorbency that other surfaces don’t, combined with good traction characteristics for active uses. Additionally it is a relatively cool surface for more passive activities as well. Under arid conditions, by covering the soil, it greatly reduces the amount of dust people must endure. Other surfaces simply don’t meet the demand and lack the needed durability. Park systems commonly make the choice of providing turf-grass. Care for turf demands that we follow a maintenance program to keep it healthy and vigorous so that it can provide optimal benefit. Shade trees complicate turf maintenance compromising its health, their shade blocking out the required sunlight, robbing it of water and the nutrients it needs. Arguing in favor of shade trees planted in turf is that people like the shade to escape summer’s heat and the sun’s intensity.  The reality is that healthy trees and turf have conflicting needs. There is no getting around this. But we commonly make this compromise and it’s okay as long as the trees are scattered allowing the turf to receive enough direct sun. Turf that is too shaded grows weakly, is subject to damage at much lower levels of use and so provides less benefit.

In nature grass and trees may grow together in several broad patterns we recognize, from grassland, or prairie, largely devoid of trees, to a low density mix found in savanna, on into woodland before reaching the density of a forest where trees dominate. In a grassland, trees are relatively rare. In savanna trees are widely spread, and absent in many areas, allowing vital grassy sweeps between them. As the density of trees increase, the landscapes progresses on into woodlands, until the canopies eventually close above, and we have a forest where grasses are few or nonexistent. The Willamette Valley once exhibited all four of these landscape types which included many thousands of acres of Oak Savanna, punctuated by the iconic Oregon White Oak, Quercus garryana, perhaps with Madrone on the rockier slopes and hillsides and galleries of Cottonwoods along the rivers. The ground layer of these were complex communities, never a monoculture like that of the modern grass lawn. A close ‘kin’ of open prairie, savanna plant communities are diverse, comprised of species of multiple grasses, both bunchers and spreaders, as well as ‘forbs’, herbaceous, broadleaved perennials and annuals with an assortment of native geophytes or bulbs, even scattered shrubs closer to small groupings of trees. The diversity above ground is reflected in the soil environment with overlapping root systems of variable depths many extending down several feet, unlike modern turf grasses. These communities are maintained in part by fire which limits the invasion of these areas by conifers, deciduous trees and shrubs which could otherwise move in and dominate, shading out the ground level species which comprise it.

 These plant communities exist in a dynamic balance, the many species in both beneficial associations and competitive ones, resulting in patterns never quite the same, but like so many other organic/living systems, readily identifiable in their parts and patterns. This particular scenario, the Oak Savanna, would never occur here, given our very different conditions, but I use it as an example to illustrate the dynamic nature of landscapes. Locally we have the Juniper/Sagebrush Steppe with nearby arid Grassland communities occurring where soil depths, precipitation and fire regimes are supportive. Many of their component species would be shared, but their mixes could vary widely. Man made landscapes, like Spruce Park’s, are artificial, contrived, and require considerable maintenance to keep them in this state. The more closely the mix of plant materials within a landscape match that of a local healthy community, the less maintenance it will require. Our demands and expectations, as well as our ignorance shape these places and result in their artificiality and consequent instability.

Grass turf has a very specific range of needs and those are very different from trees. This can be understood simply by looking at their above ground structures and their roots below. The modern lawn, here often Kentucky Bluegrass, is shallowly rooted and grows actively throughout the spring, summer and fall. Most of the grass species which are members of the Oak Savanna, as well as the locally native grass species here, are far more deeply rooted giving them a survival advantage during our extended summer dry period. Native grasses also tend to grow taller, often much taller, and coarser, reflecting their root depths. Such grasses make poor turf as the needed mowing removes needed top growth and stymies root growth. Native grass species of our local grasslands and steppe areas also tend to have their active growth periods matched to those periods when soil water is available, and because of this they are cool season, early growers, often completing their active growth, flowering and seed production by mid-summer when soils are dry their tops withering. Of course other species predominate where streams, lakes and vernal pools typically occur, their wetter conditions supporting different grass species. Native species don’t just survive our routine summer drought, they are adapted to it, and in this sense require it. More water can stress them pushing them, with too much of a good thing, water. Other plants, like weeds, will be supported by the additional water disrupting the community composition. It won’t remain the ‘community’ it began as. Adapted plants do have an ability to survive those more extreme marginal periods of drought, and surplus wet, but it is limited.

With its shallow rooting and the demand that our lawns remain in an active state of growth throughout the spring, summer, fall growing season, frequent irrigation is a necessity to keep the root zone of turf-grasses, extending only 6″-8″ deep, moist. Proper irrigation here is exacerbated by the fact that the soils are relatively coarse and have significantly less capacity on their own to retain moisture as compared to regions with loam or clay type soils. Ours locally are derived from volcanic ash. These dry quickly.  Irrigating to depths deeper than the grass’ root zone extends is ‘wasted’. The water ‘percolates’ relatively quickly down through the soil profile and drains away beyond the ‘reach’ of the turf’s root system. But deeper, less frequent, soaking applications of water are what the larger deciduous shade trees, planted in the turf areas here, need. 

These trees are summer growers, adapted to a pattern of occasional though significant rains. This allows their roots to grow deeper following the moisture down through the soil profile, making them effectively more tolerant of occasional drought. Their soils are generally finer, with more surface area to hold water, so that it is available for plant growth. Less frequent, deeper, irrigation is what is needed to get these tree roots deep. The roots of these trees will follow the moisture. If moisture is restricted to the turf’s preferred 6″-8″, so will a tree’s roots and the effect will be less drought tolerance and more competition for it from the turf. The root zone they draw from, under such conditions, is effectively reduced. Conversely, watering to meet the trees’ needs will stress the turf on a regular cycle allowing in more ‘competitive’ weeds especially where the weakened turf is thinner and lacks vigor. As I said though, turf in Parks is often a priority. 

Growing a tree at the extreme of its margin, in terms of growing conditions, isn’t the best choice. Sure they’re plenty cold tolerant, but that does not mean they are adapted to our growing conditions. Such woodland trees grow in moist, finer textured soils, with the relatively high organic content common to woodlands. Those woodlands do not have a ground layer dominated by grasses. Remember that grasses, in general grow in the open. Some do okay in dappled shade. Few to none grow well in the heavy shade of a dense canopy. Attempting to do so will yield ‘weak’ turf which is vulnerable to damage by even infrequent foot traffic. This organic and deep humus layer of a woodland aids the soil’s water holding capacity while boosting its nutrient content. 

Coarse, sandy soils like ours here, tend to be low in terms of organic content, which is directly related to the overall lower productive capacity of the region, less growth, less shed and sluffed off organic matter. This results in low organic content, mineral soils. These tend to be poor ‘nutritionally’. There are soil chemistry reasons for this that I’m not going to attempt to explain here other than to say that clays, which are very much finer and platy, have the capacity to slow the loss of the all important nitrogen so necessary for growth. Coarse, sandy, fast draining, mineral soils, require that they be augmented regularly with organic matter to support the demands of the woodland communities described, as well as those herbaceous plants typically associated with vegetable growing and the European influenced flower gardens. Organic matter does hold and release nitrogen as it breaks down as well as adding to the carbon necessary for the many soil organisms which are part of the community. Freed, the nitrogen is then available to be absorbed as needed by roots…The alternative is nitrogenous fertilizers created offsite. Native plant communities of the high desert get around this by requiring fewer nutrients, often growing slowly, sometimes being evergreen so they don’t have to replace as much tissue and structures, having less densely growing communities, root systems of various depths which can ‘retrieve’ nitrogen before it is leeched beyond the community’s collective ‘reach’, and by being comprised of diverse species, with varying demands and, in some cases, including plants capable of ‘fixing’ atmospheric nitrogen, an ability not shared by all plants, thus making it available for the community’s required protein synthesis.

Plants continuously ‘shed’ cells and structures as they grow containing these proteins, in addition to other exudates that help improve and maintain soil structure. The proteins decay freeing their nitrogen, making it available for use by other plants, a continuous process of capturing and cycling. This is less likely to happen in contrived simple landscape systems, composed of a few individuals out of relationship with empty niches. Nutrients are regularly ‘lost’ in these and must be replenished from outside sources. Sandy soils with simplistic, incomplete, contrived communities, will always require the regular addition of nitrogen rich fertilizers to maintain their growth and health, especially if the plants come from places with richer soils and milder climate. Turfgrass, a relatively heavy nitrogen feeder, is thus twice hampered by its shallow roots in these soils. The frequency of watering can quickly leech the nitrogen out of reach of the turf’s roots and the proteins they require for healthy growth depleted. The margins within which turf thrives are narrow.

All of this goes to say that simplicity in a landscape comes with a cost. The composition of plant communities matters if we are concerned about our role and the resources required to keep them healthy. Landscapes are not simple ‘plug and play’ systems. There are forces and cycles at work within them. If we want to be responsible stewards of our landscapes, more is demanded of us so that our efforts are not in conflict with our own goals and the limits of the systems working within the landscapes. 

Returning to the Autumn Blaze Maples, they originated in a summer wet climate and that’s what they require. Yes, they’re relatively fast growing and they are pollution tolerant, making them a decent urban choice, but we are a desert region that only gets eight or 9 inches of rain per year average. On top of this we’ve been in a sustained drought period for a few years receiving 2″-3″ less than that. Our pattern of rainfall is also different, the bulk of our precipitation arriving over the winter months and ‘shoulder’ seasons when these trees are dormant, not actively growing. Typically we are limited to a little more than an inch of rain over the entire summer, some years receiving essentially none, others more. A plant’s demand for water is only so elastic.

Looking at the state of Ohio, one state from these tree’s home range, contains regions characterized by four Koppen climate types, Cfa (humid sub-tropical), Cfb (Oceanic), Dfa (hot summer, humid continental) and Dfb (warm summer, humid continental), overall the state averages 40″ of precipitation annually, relatively evenly split across the year. Humid and oceanic. The details of the pattern of rainfall ranges fairly widely across the state, but the wider pattern holds. The summer months are commonly wetter than the winter, often averaging as much as 4″/month and more, over the period. That is so not central Oregon. Insufficient water when it is needed will stress or even kill a plant. Because these are summer growers this period is critical. It is especially important after planting when attempting to establish these here. This means  we can’t ‘turn the water off’ after initial establishment. Ideally, this tree will require irrigation its entire life here. Watered shallowly, as might be prescribed for turf, their roots will remain shallow, their drought tolerance more limited. Their roots will not grow out into dry, non-irrigated soil. They will remain limited, as if contained. Without the water these need they will suffer sustained drought stress year after year and die without supplemental water. Essentially, to grow these well here we must treat them as if they were growing within a container with a limited root/soil volume. If we aren’t committed to doing this then there are many better choices for this climate than this maple. Of course to do this will require a change in our expectation, a change in our aesthetic, which more  strictly  follows the conditions of living in a desert landscape.

Northern Red Oak, Quercus rubra, is planted in the Park’s large central turf area and curb side along Spruce St. to the south. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this tree, but again it’s use here in Central Oregon is questionable. Found primarily east of the Mississippi River where again they have very significant rainfall during the summer growing season. Yes, it is very cold tolerant but that, again, should not be the main criteria for choosing a tree to plant locally.

Northern Red Oaks have been planted extensively west of the Cascades. Because of the region’s deep, rich, water retentive soil’s these are rapid growers there, as they are back east. In the Portland area and throughout the Willamette Valley these can relatively quickly attain a canopy spread of 75 feet or more. The deep Willamette Valley soils allow their roots to spread freely. Their large lobbed leaves are persistent, turn brown in the fall, tending to hang on through much of the winter and are slow to break down after dropping. This further complicates the growing of sun dependent turf-grass beneath them buried under slow to decay leaves. Their habit of leaf retention creates a protracted leaf cleanup season, just as do the eastern North American Pin Oaks. If these trees aren’t good choices for the region why are they planted so frequently? Availability. Habit. We plant what we have available to us and is known to us. These are commonly grown trees by Oregon’s nursery industry…more on this later.  On the dry eastside, while cold tolerant these are much slower growing than are their compatriots on the westside, due to soil limitations, cold and our arid conditions.  They are not going to dominate a landscape here and they demand water. 

Tree Possibilities and Experimentation

There are other Oaks from drier more western parts of the Great Plains, Rockies and the Colorado Plateau that would be better adapted, such as Quercus gambelii, found in dry Colorado, Utah, northern New Mexico and Arizona; Quercus x undulata, a Colorado group of hybrids probably including Gambel’s, the shrubbier Q. turbinella and, in some, Q. grisea, the Gray Oak, maybe even the large Burr Oak, Q. macrocarpa. There are several forms of these becoming available. The Burr Oak with moisture can attain massive size. These smaller Oaks are another indicator of the aridity characteristic of the region they come from, such climates don’t support massive growth. Additionally, California hosts multiple Oak species, some with some testing, may prove hardy here, especially if grown from seed collected from h northern reaches of their range, but they too are likely to be smaller growers here.

There is reason to include the Oregon White Oak, Quercus garryana, the iconic Oak of the Willamette Valley, which grows all of the way up into southern BC, east well into the Columbia River Gorge and south of there up on to the broad, relatively dry, eastern flank of Mt. Hood, on land sometimes shared with Pine and Fir if not too dense. I’ve read that genetically there is very little difference between this latter population and those in the Valley. Even so, it seems well worth the effort to collect seed, acorns, from the population growing in and around Wamic, OR, to try here, with minimal supplemental irrigation, much less than the Maple and Oak planted in Spruce Park. A strong, beautiful otherwise well adapted tree for here.

The list of trees expands if you are willing to include conifers, adding other species of Juniper, Pine and Cypress…but then these are outside of people’s expectations of what a shade tree should be. Note, locally people often accept Ponderosa Pine as a shade tree as long as they aren’t dropping pitch on their decks or lawn furniture. People tend not to be able to reconcile the differences between the limits of where they might be with their dreams and expectations. I’ve had this conversation more than once.

I grew up locally with five large native Junipers in our lawn. We climbed in them, got pitchy hands and watched the birds feed on them in the Fall. These aren’t trees people normally plant in their home landscapes, just try to find one in a local garden center, but they are the iconic tree for this part of the arid West. They are supremely well adapted here and so common that most people look down on them, an attitude which has become even more so as land owners and government agencies grapple with controlling their domineering spread, due largely to our having eliminated the long cycle fires burning through. Locally Junipers are often discouraged because they are flammable and a stand of them can create a fire hazard, but a Juniper here or there spread across a landscape….(We are a difficult species. We transform the landscape and create conditions to our liking that are in direct conflict with our local native landscapes and then work to eliminate them for their habitual and necessary, cyclic pattern of burning. It would seem that a vigorous, green turf lawn is the only acceptable landscape.)

Another species, Juniperus osteosperma, grows throughout the American Southwest and tends to be smaller than our local native, J. occidentalis. It often occurs with the Single Needled Pinyon Pine, Pinus monophylla, another drought and cold tolerant Pine, sadly hard to find here, but well adapted. There is one growing on SW Canyon Dr. that must be at least 25′ tall. Again, if we are going to plant, conscious of our conditions, and conserve water, these are the kinds of trees we should be considering.

Winter deciduousness, what we in temperate North America consider ‘normal’, is a plant adaptation that works well in regions with cold winters, which areas east of the 100th meridian, the Midwest, the Ohio Valley and Northeastern US, has. This is also their dry season. The region has diverse and sprawling mixed deciduous forests. Such trees shed their leaves during the winter there, and replacing them once spring arrives when local soils are wet during the long summer growing season. 

The trait of evergreen-ness allows a plant to grow whenever conditions are supportive, mild damp winter periods and sporadic wet periods during otherwise dry summers. The quality of ‘evergreen-ness’, means that the plant is ‘ready’ to grow whenever conditions are supportive. Additionally they conserve water and nutrients by not having to replace leaves as they tend to be thicker and tougher overall and thus resistant to water loss. Of course, evergreens shed leaves, some even annually, but many hang on to their leaves and needles for several years before dropping them. Some, like the drought tolerant Pinus aristata and Pinus longavea, hang on their ‘leaves’/needles for ten years or more, Juniper and Cypress hold their scaly leaves even longer.

Some trees and shrubs get around summer drought by exhibiting drought deciduousness.  They routinely drop their leaves as soils dry in summer, going dormant, much like winter deciduous plants do. Many woody plants of the desert SW do this. Then, with the return of Fall rains, or, in some cases, summer rain showers, they leaf out again with thin, relatively insubstantial, leaves that require a comparatively small nutrient investment. This strategy works for them. Plants not so adapted are unduly stressed when forced into this pattern. This strategy is related to our herbaceous perennials here which go through their growth cycle quickly, going dormant as summer soils dry out. Most of the woody plants that do this on the West Coast are California natives many of which too often lack the cold tolerance for Central Oregon. 

It would seem fair to expect that if we are going to plant non-native trees from other regions, that the bulk of them be better adapted to our arid and changing climate, rather than those whose performance here will be ever more compromised as the climate warms and dries. We have to keep in mind that available tree species adapted to dry areas, decline rapidly in number with the precipitation. Native here, away from rivers, lakes and the higher precipitation levels of higher elevations, leaves us with only the Western Juniper, Juniperus occidentalis. ‘It’ is ‘the’ iconic and dominate tree of our region. For much of the larger region even the Juniper is absent. Where they can grasslands and the Sagebrush Steppe cover many thousands of acres. One’s view in such country can extend for many miles uninterrupted by trees. If we look to the mountain ranges of the Great Basin and its higher bordering areas there are possibilities, but they are relatively few.

Celtis reticulata, one of the Hackberry species, can be found in some of the Eastern Oregon canyon bottoms. There are several Pines that could work including the Gray Pine, Pinus sabiniana, from northern California and perhaps the Pinyon Pine, Pinus edulis, amongst others and those already mentioned. Sugar and Jeffery Pine in the southern eastern Cascades are also candidates although these will become larger timber trees so their use might be limited to Parks which receive some summer water, which in a grass turf covered Park isn’t an issue. Other conifers like the Colorado Blue Spruce, Picea pungens, are already planted extensively throughout the area would require less water than many, if not most, of the listed deciduous shade trees.

The evergreen Mountain Mahogany, on the plant list for this Park, can eventually, very slowly, form a small tree and won’t need much water help. This limitation is why we would be looking to plants from regions slightly warmer than ours currently is, to augment our local very small palette with trees from the Great Basin, Eastern Sierra Nevadas, northern California, the Colorado Plateau, south to the Mogollon Rim. In some cases there are trees and other plants from higher elevation mountain sites south of even there which show promise. Because trees are generally long term inhabitants of our landscape, we can hardly afford to keep changing them out to meet fashion, we should be looking ahead to such a changed future.

We all know Ponderosa Pine here in Central Oregon. Many of us, myself included, have an affinity for the widely spread stands of these in our region. We need to remember, however, that Central Oregon’s climate, its rainfall patterns and amounts, vary across even this relatively small region. [See the Oregon rainfall map. Redmond is in the 5.1″-10″, Bend and Sisters can vary between 10″-20″ and are both within the Ponderosa’s natural range, significantly wetter than Redmond. That ecotone, which exists where the Juniper/Sagebrush and Ponderosa Pine plant communities overlap, can be delineated by a line, which reflects the Pine’s minimum annual precipitation level, a line that cuts down through eastern Bend. While it may only be a few inches, in an arid climate, such differences can determine a species’ survival. When you do see Ponderosa’s growing near Redmond, they tend to be growing near water, such as down in the Deschutes River Canyon, gullies, draws and seeps, where there’s enough soil and moisture, adjacent to the open and leaky irrigation canals that follow contours downslope through the area or as part of ‘built’ landscapes receiving supplemental irrigation. These will be more successful than the Autumn Blaze Maple’s and Oaks on less supplemental water. Iideally, they will receive an additional five or 6 inches of rain equivalent over the year here in Redmond. Where soils are relatively shallow, with their consequent lower water holding capacities, summer irrigation demand is going to be even higher. 

The Ponderosa Pine, in Spruce Park, are sited in broad ‘native’ beds stretching along the western, northern and eastern edges. (Note that the plants in these beds often have conflicting water requirements.) A few others are planted along the edge of the lawn areas. A sprinkler system is plumbed in with pop-up spray and rotary heads in these beds. These conflicting requirements are again problematic in these beds.

The City of Redmond has three different tree lists, one for the downtown corridor, one for street trees outside of it and one for street trees beneath utility lines.  Combined these are still very limited including only two trees native under some conditions in the arid west, west of the Rocky Mountains. All of the rest are native in the wetter eastern US, Europe or Asia. (The Downtown Corridor and the Approved Street Tree List are recommendations while the list for Street Trees under power lines, is more restrictive.)

You would find many/most of these on Willamette Valley tree lists and while the Valley also tends to have very dry summers the remainder of the year is much wetter. Portland rainfall ranges between 32″ and 58″ and with its heavier, deeper soils hold more of that later into the summer. Any of these trees are going to do better there than here with less supplemental water.

What is desperately needed here is an ‘experimental program to test other tree alternatives in a systematic way so that we can plant more appropriately for our local conditions today and tomorrow. The Parks, public lands and interested residents would seem to provide the perfect opportunity for doing this. Otherwise, how are we to improve our practice? This would seem to be mandatory as the local population keeps growing along with its demands for water. Something needs to change. The large ‘native beds’ here in Spruce Park would seem to be an opportunity for such a program….

The ‘Native Plantings’: Shrubs, Forbs and Grasses

I have an issue with applying the designation of ‘Native Plantings’ to bed plantings that include only a few regional natives. The included non-natives are…non-native. They have different requirements. This is a less than ‘honest’ way of characterizing a landscape. Mixing such plants ignores what a native plant community is, a self-sustaining living system composed of plants in relationship with one another, occupying niches, with compatible root systems, patterns of growth that compliment and support the health of the community. Intact plant communities require no intervention. While this may not be strictly attainable in a Park, it should be a goal that we are working towards, a standard or measuring stick by which we can assess our success or lack thereof. These plants do not comprise a whole ‘system’. Suggesting that it is such a landscape I think damages our ability to move toward a reality of native/site appropriate plantings and sustainable design…which is true to the name and water conserving. It ignores the complexity and relationships inherent in any healthy native plant community and allows much of the public to continue dismissing that which they don’t know or value. 

These beds include at the shrub and ground level Cercocarpus ledifolius, the Curl-Leaf Mountain Mahogany found in mountain areas of eastern Oregon, including the.Ochocos and Steens Mountain down into the mountains of the Great Basin and others of Eastern Oregon. Their native conditions are slightly different than those particular to this locale, somewhat wetter and, due to higher elevation, cooler in the summer. These aren’t members of the immediate local plant communities. They are likely to require some minimal amount of supplemental water, but they are ‘fudgeable’. A friend and nurseryman pointed out to me that there is another species, Little Leaf Mountain Mahogany, Cercocarpus intricatus, sometimes considered a subspecies, which is a more compact grower and a resident of the Smith Rock area, (On my list of plants to locate.) as well as from further south into the Great Basin and Colorado. It may be better adapted to our immediate local conditions, unless of course irrigation becomes a regular part of maintenance. Overall the listed shrub palette here is very limited leaving out several species very common throughout our local Sagebrush Steppe and adjacent related landscapes.

The most common shrub planted in the Park is Chrysothamnus (aka. Ericameria) nauseosus, Gray Rabbitbrush, which is adaptable/tolerant throughout our region and often takes on the role of a ruderal colonizing disturbed sites. It dominates in much of the bottom of near by Dry Canyon. Also listed in the plan are the Yellow Flowering Current, Ribes aureum, sometimes found near rivers in regional canyon bottoms such as the John Day, occasionally growing  upslope from the river in places influenced by seeps coming from canyon walls. This is a particularly lush foliaged plant and as such is a standout here in the native, grey, landscape. The Desert Sweet Fernbush, Chamaebatteria millefolium, is listed on the plan, but I didn’t see it in the ground. The Fernbush is native in drier parts of southern Deschutes County and on south across much of the dry Great Basin. The Fernbush should perform here after establishment with no supplemental water, the Yellow Flowering Current will probably need ‘help’. Listed also in the plan is Russian Sage, Perovskia atriplicifolia, now ‘corrected’ to Salvia yangii, unrelated to the native forms of Big Sagebrush. Russian Sage is commonly used in Central Oregon landscapes, and a native of the western and central Asian steppe, meaning it is pretty well adapted, but is definitely not native here. 

Absent are the several area Artemesia spp., commonly lumped together as the Sagebrushes, Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus, the common Green Rabbitbrush, Small Leafed Ocean Spray or Creambush, Holodiscus microphyllus, Mahonia aquafolium, Oregon Grape (which grows naturally nearby in the broken, tumble of basalt below the nearby canyon rim, its roots shaded, and Purshia tridentata the deciduous and ubiquitous Antelope Bitterbrush. Ribes cereum the local Wax Current is a common member of the steppe community here, and is found throughout nearby Dry Canyon. A host of other less common but frequent members of our native plant communities including one of our ‘best’ natives in terms of fragrant flowering shrubs, the Western Mockorange, Philadelphus lewisii, of which there are several selections. I’ve seen this growing in the Deschutes River canyon directly out of basalt rimrock, I’m not sure whether selections of such drought tolerant forms are available, but even if this is in a xeric bed, with lawn nearby and the water necessary to sustain that, this Philadelphus should do fine. Western Serviceberry, Amelanchier alnifolia, is often included on lists for the eastside, but it really rightly still belongs to the wetter conditions in play in the eastern flank of the Cascades where it can be found along the lower Deschutes, westerly into the Willamette Valley and the Columbia Gorge. A more appropriate and better adapted choice might be Amelanchier utahensis from the Great Basin. This shrub provides the interest of our more commonly used native in a more compact and drought tolerant plant, while providing the fruit for wildlife, although it doesn’t seem locally available. Nurseries do carry it in the Great Basin states such as Colorado and Utah.  Deciduous shrubs are largely absent from the plan other than the Redtwig Dogwood, Cornus sericea, and a shrubby Willow, which have been used to border a few designated ‘wet’ areas, which I’ll address later.

 If one were attempting to create a landscape reflective of the Ponderosa Pine community the areas between the trees would be a mix of grasses, mostly Idaho Fescue, with some of our sclerophyllous native shrubs, including our area Manzanita, Arctostaphylos patula (The propagation code of this particular Manzanita has not been broken yet and rooting percentages are consistently very low discouraging its nursery production. Locally the few plants found available are generally wild dug, ‘rescued’ from development.), Antelope Bitterbrush and  Snowbrush, Ceanothus velutinus, from that ‘wetter’ ecotone extending south and west of Bend and Sisters, north to the Columbia.

This could be an opportunity to try the Manzanita, Arctostaphylos x coloradoensis, a natural hybrid of Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva ursi) and Greenleaf Manzanita (Arctostaphylos patula) both also natives of the eastern Cascades. These natural hybrids are of Colorado origin of which there are several selections available. They are easier to propagate vegetatively than A. patula at reasonable percentages. They are compact growers at 1′-3′ tall over time requiring no pruning. These are marketed under the Plant Select label at regional garden centers and by some smaller Oregon nurseries like Xera in Sherwood, Oregon. The two most common forms are Chieftain and Panchito, Chieftain being slightly taller. There are other Oregon natural hybrids found on the drier eastern flank of the Cascades some of which have been collected and are under limited production, but these require some searching, from growers like Cistus Design Nursery outside Portland, if you give them enough lead time…and that is often an issue with more of the unusual natives so they can be grown under contract. Parents include Arctostaphylos columbiana, A, nevadensis, A. patula and A. uva-ursi which yield more compact growers like the A. x coloradoensis selections I noted above.

The choices for this project often seem kind of ‘in-between’, conflicted. If we are following the ‘Right Plant, Right Place’ rule, grouping plants with the same needs together on a site, we wouldn’t be mixing them. The designated native plant areas are a mix of locally xeric plants next to those which will require supplemental water over the years. By not making this decision plants will be compromised. There will always be issues around establishment as a new landscape is…new, created on a site, in this case, one that had served agricultural purposes for decades, before being cleared and prepped for this project. There are none of the relationships of an intact native landscape. The balance can only come over time and maintenance which is attuned to the site with a consistent shared vision in mind, utilizing what those talking about ‘novel’ landscapes and ecologists would call ‘adaptive management’. This landscape will be in transition, for years…as will any newly created landscape, and as such will be subject to flux and change while the population and mix adjusts and adapts to the evolving conditions. Success requires that this decision be clear so that maintenance can work consistently toward a realistic and relatively stable landscape, always keeping in mind that all landscapes are dynamic and evolving, even those mature ones we may use as models for our own. 

Forbs – Herbaceous Perennials

The perimieter ‘Native Planting’ beds, punctuated with the Ponderosa Pines and shrubs discussed above include only one native herbaceous plant, the Common Yarrow, Achillea millefollium, They’ve planted a cultivar of it, ‘Terracotta’, a genetically narrower selection of the species. This Yarrow is extremely adaptable and occurs naturally around the entire northern hemisphere on drier sites. It makes sense to include it here. In reality, on some sites, Yarrow can dominate a planting depending on the plant diversity and maintenance practices. As I said, there are no other native perennials included here. Healthy Steppe landscapes would include many. This leaves many niches open, places for invasion. These beds include three non-native herbaceous plants which will require some supplemental water to keep them healthy, including Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ and Echinacea purpurea ‘Pow Wow Wildberry’, both of which are from midwestern prairie states. I suspect they were added for pops of color, but their inclusion works against water conservation. Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ is a German selection of a perennial from the mid-western prairie, whose home region overlaps with Echinacea purpurea, I found several of the labels for Echinacea ‘Pow Wow Wildberry’ on site. From my experience the named Echinacea cultivars are often less durable than the species. As I noted above these prefer wetter, prairie, conditions than would normally occur here. There are two other non-native herbaceous perennials which would require some supplemental irrigation to perform well, on the plant list that may have been substituted for, an Agastache sp. and Liatris sp. The Liatris is another resident of the prairies and meadows of eastern half  of North America preferring summer moist conditions. Agastache contains 22 different species, from various regions of North America and consequently, with different requirements. There many cultivars widely available, which aren’t native and will likely require some supplemental water here. Agastache cusickii is native in some of the sagebrush steppe and alpine areas of eastern Oregon, such as Steens Mountain, but it is relatively rare and threatened in parts of its range. Of all of these non-natives mentioned here only the Liatris are growing in any numbers with vigor. Th others have largely failed, a result of the contractor’s practices.

Where, one can easily ask, are the Penstemon, Eriogonum, Lomatium, and other locally common native perennials, of which there are multiple possibilities?  Balsamorhiza which can dominate Sagebrush Steppe when they bloom in spring, are absent. One must be patient when planting the latter as they can take several years to mature and size up into flowering plants, but are long lived. Linum lewisii, the native Blue Flax with its blue flowers, there are several native Phlox, Pearly Everlasting, Oregon Sunshine, Monardella odoritissima and a host of many others available from native nurseries. Where are they? A favorite of mine is the genus Sphaeralcea, all of which are arid western species. One of these, Sphaeralcea munroana, one of the bright orange to apricot flowered Globemallows, closely related to the Hollyhock and more exotic Hibiscus, is native, although not common here. Going a little further afield into the Great Basin, Colorado and the mountains to the south, and Washington to the north, are several other species which would perform here. As summer bloomers the Globe Mallows provide color when it is in short supply, without going to mid-westerners with their water demands.

There are often availability issues when you are trying to locate plants outside what the industry is geared to produce in mass, but these are available if you look and, in many cases, plan ahead. This shouldn’t be much of an issue for capital Parks projects as they generally have long lead times. Several area nurseries grow and stock them routinely including nurseries like wholesaler Great Basin and the long established Winter Creek Nursery on the north edge of Bend and Clearwater about 4 miles west of Redmond. For larger projects, with a little advanced warning these and many others can be grown in large numbers by contract.

Many natives can be much more difficult to find. Some are difficult to propagate. Some aren’t amenable to nursery production. In other cases they are rare and seed is difficult to come by, the seed plants are found in very remote locations or are ‘collected’/eaten by wildlife for their own survival. Others aren’t adapted to the handling which comes with the growing in pots for human landscapes and must be seeded directly in place. Many or most of eastern Oregon’s natives are not grown by commercial nurseries so when designers base their designs on what’s available, and what is familiar, these plants go unnoticed. Additionally if a long flowering season is a priority for chosen plants, that translates to plants from regions with summer water, are hybrids or selected over generations for those characteristics…not natives. Plants tend to flower when they are actively growing and, again, the summer growing season here is short due to aridity and an unstable continental climate with large daily temperature swings. In terms of their flowering periods a few notable exceptions include the Artemesia’s and Rabbitbrush species, both rest during the summer and burst into flower in early Fall.

Another factor, I suspect was one I used to be confronted with, maintenance managers, themselves with a limited palette of plants they understand, wanting to simplify plantings and ‘simplify’ the work of field staff, stripping down, plantings which often results in designs with plants separated from one another, leaving open space to be cultivated/sprayed, so plants are maintained more as isolated individuals. This demands less knowledge to care for such a landscape. This is especially true when plantings repeat. They can all be treated largely the same. One plan fits all.

Planting in a ‘natural’ matrix, requires that those doing maintenance know their plants. Working with an evolving, more complex, landscape is more difficult. Such landscapes are more dynamic/complex communities, which must be ‘read’ so maintenance practices can be ‘tuned’ to their particularities. This requires a more knowledgable and motivated staff. The more knowledgable the staff, the more expensive they are to retain. In this situation, claiming that such a planting is ‘native’, when it isn’t, serves no useful purpose. It misleads the public, who are in many or even most cases, especially given the region’s growth rate, largely ignorant of the place in which they live.

Juniper and Grasses – Native (xeric), Forest and Wet Area

In any landscape there is a complex mesh of plants, smaller plants filling the spaces between larger, different ones, grasses, forbs, shrubs and trees populating different layers, their root systems taking up space from some while offering it to others. Plants form into a matrix, populations shifting with the conditions on the ground, over time. The native steppe communities, don’t crowd each other on the soil surface. There is often ‘space’ between them. Aridity, the lack of water, favors plants best able to utilize available water, their roots spreading and descending, through the soil profile, bare surface space is filled below surface with roots. Microbes and insects occupy the soil along with fungi, lichen and bacteria. Various biological ‘crusts’, comprised of bacteria, fungi, mosses and lichens, occupy and transform the surface layer of soil as a defense and preparation for what is to come.

There is a particular hierarchy in effect here with Junipers out competing shrubs as their size and density increase. Where Junipers are absent due to the occurrence of fire, or more competitive communities, the shrub layer dominates, as long as the cycle of fire isn’t too frequent. More frequent fires tend to destroy the Sagebrush population which is slow to come back from burning (It must do so from seed. It does not sprout back from its base). Where neither Junipers nor shrubs have advantage, historically, a diverse grassland community predominates. This grass community is augmented with a variety of annuals and perennials all the members carving out a space for themselves. There is no singular mix of grasses that will succeed across all of our landscapes here, their composition and density vary, and there is a ‘shading’ which occurs between these different broad communities which, again, vary based on site conditions, use and history.

The grasses planted here in the ‘native’ beds of the Park, Junegrass, Kohleria macrantha, Idaho Fescue, Festuca idahoensis and Pseudoroegneria spicata, on the planting plan listed as Agropyron spicata, commonly known as Blue Bunch Wheatgrass, don’t naturally form complete communities here. Grasslands, Sagebrush Steppe and Juniper Forest have diverse and variable blends of native grass species and forbs associated with them. These listed grasses are common in the Sagebrush Steppe on undisturbed sites, others generally occurring with them. All of these are deeper rooted and thus more drought tolerant than the limited turf grasses, and are effective at holding soil.

Idaho Fescue, common here, can dominate the open spaces between trees in Juniper forest, at least until the invasive Cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum, which is extremely competitive, moves in. This Fescue is, a more minor component of the Sagebrush Steppe and area Grasslands. Other grass species combine to form a more stable community here, to fill the available niches. These include: Blue Bunch Wheatgrass, Pseudoroegneria spicata, Needle and Thread Grass, Hesperostipa comata, Western Needlegrass, Achnatherum occidentale and Thurber’s Needlegrass, Achnatherum thurberianum. Sandberg’s Bluegrass, Poa secunda, Cusick’s Bluegrass, Poa cusickii, Bottlebrush Squirreltail Grass,  may also be component species. Junegrass, Koeleria macrantha, is a relatively adaptable component found in drier forests, sagebrush steppe and drier grasslands often with Idaho Fescue, though never dominant.  Bottlebrush Squirreltail Grass, Elymus elymoides, Indian Ricegrass, Achnatherum hymenoides, are two more frequent component of several area communities. Great Basin Wild Rye, Leymus cinereus is a Sagebrush Steppe member…but only where the community abuts wetter areas. I am not familiar enough with these grasses, and their local communities, to say what precisely the local communities might be and their precise composition. One source indicates that native grasses around Redmond historically were dominated by Blue Bunch Wheatgrass, Pseudoroegneria spicata, Needle and Thread Grass, Hesperostipa comata and Western Needlegrass, Achnatherum occidentale, so their inclusion would seem mandatory. 

(Blue Fescue, Festuca glauca, is on the Spruce Park plant list, but I’m not sure from the plan where it is intended to go. Blue Fescue is a southern European native and is relatively short lived requiring regular division to keep it viable. It is commonly grown in ‘dry’ areas of many contrived Willamette Valley gardens. Not sure why this is included here given Idaho Fescue’s local provenance and superior performance, except that it and a couple cultivars are produced in large numbers by the nursery industry in the Willamette Valley.)

The USDA’s, National Resource Conservation Service, breaks areas down by soil type. (These can be found on line.) The areas surrounding Redmond are of several different, closely related types and are so labelled. These aren’t especially helpful in themselves with titles like, “Ecological site R010XA0090R Juniper Shrubby Pumice Flat 10-12PZ”.Or,  “Ecological site R010XA0270R Juniper Pumice Flat 8-10PZ” (Check out this PDF,) They have legitimate reasons for splitting them so. These reasons have to do with geology, soil origin, deposition, soil depth and rainfall. Each of these has a report attached to it in which, among other things, they list a few of the predominant plant species occurring on the site, under natural conditions. These aren’t complete floras, but they would be instructive for the person attempting to create an appropriate plant community for a particular site with shallower soils receives little rainfall.

Idaho Fescue is common in Juniper Forest country, which historically were mostly limited to rocky outcrops, where lavas once flowed at the surface and still remains mostly above it, as well as on slopes. Fires were less frequent on such sites, thinner soils supporting less flammable ‘fuels’, fewer grasses and shrubs. A walk through a Juniper forest such as that around Cline Buttes, can quickly educate a person about the existence of ‘bare’ surface soil in such an arid place. Water and the lack thereof, strongly determine the plant communities here, their diversity and density. Much of the BLM lands in the Cline Butte area have a long history as Juniper forest with trees estimated to be as old as 1,000 years. The broader flats, often with deeper soils, historically tended to be dominated by grasses and Sagebrush communities, the Juniper component limited by fire. 

The June Grass used here is common in much of North America and Eurasia. I grew it in open areas in Portland where as a cool season grass it would have an early start, bursting forth in spring, flower, seed and finish by mid-summer. That was an unirrigated site. It went through its rapid growth cycle before spending much of the year dormant for me in the Willamette Valley. Tufted Hairgrass, Deschampsia caespitosa, a somewhat larger bunching type grass, is spec’ed here in the Park in a couple smaller areas near NW 25th. This is common to cool temperate areas around the northern hemisphere, although not a desert species, it is more commonly found throughout the Willamette Valley and open mountainous meadows and open forests where again it receives more rainfall. Like many other bunch type growers, including the Idaho Fescue, these don’t form a dense, weed suppressing sod. they leave bare space in which other plants can germinate.

A handful of Feather Reed Grass, Calmagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Forrester’ is planted near the play area, again not a native, but a grass whose structure is familiar to residents as it is heavily used in Central Oregon landscapes for its strong vertical structure. It requires summer irrigation to perform, although being more deeply rooted, not as much as turfgrass. These are few and seem to be almost an after thought.

Depressions and Swales: Defined Wet Areas

There are five separate areas labelled as depressions or swales on the plan. One, with steep sides, is 4′ deep and is plumbed into drains from the hard surface around the shelter to handle the runoff there. The others are all shallower. Two lie between the street and play area, grades sloping slightly toward them. Two other depression/swales, both shallow, are in the long north bed adjacent to the neighboring fences. The turf area to the south slopes at 2% or so toward them. These are planted with a few Salix scouleriana, apparently substitutions as the plan calls for Salix prolixa, Mackenzie Willow, which is more of a forest waterside plant than is Scouler’s which tolerates some drought. Also at the top of the bank, but not always too close, is Redtwig Dogwood, Cornus sericea. I wouldn’t expect either to thrive. I suspect winter runoff won’t amount to anything significant so these will depend upon regular irrigation. I’m not sure how the herbaceous plantings will do down in the depression/swales, especially those above the bottom. I read the drainage specs for these and they are all expected to drain down quickly. The herbaceous plants include Iris missourinensis, Camassia quamash, Carex aquitilis and strangely Gaillardia aristata, Echinaceae purpurea and Festuca idahoensis. I assume the latter three are to be planted in the higher, drier elevation as they aren’t ‘wetland plants. I’m also confused by the quantities shown on the plant list, they make no sense given the areas to be planted. Is this a typo? Six of the Iris and 3 of the Camassia!!! There are 5 of these areas to be planted!!! I must also note that Carex aquatilis, the Water Sedge seems to be an especially poor choice as it is primarily a member of the temperate montane wet meadow, or boreal fen (literally swampy areas), in the west Cascades where the soils are wet to saturated most of the year. Another form of this species is common to similar wet meadows in the Coast Range. I can’t see it performing here at all. I have similar reservation about the Iris missouriensis which is found in wet meadows of the eastern Cascades, elsewhere in eastern Oregon and other western states, in places such as those broad wet flats that once bracketed the Deschutes in the Sunriver, Spring River area, at least before the creation of three golf courses…. 

Calmagrostis rubenescens, Pine Grass is included as a part of what the Designers are calling their Water Quality Mix, to be installed in the two depressions in the long northern bed which are intended to collect surface runoff. (Normally, on undisturbed local sites, soils analysis describe runoff as negligible). I noted from the irrigation plan that these are on separate valves so they can be irrigated more heavily to keep the plants in them alive. Pine Grass is ‘native’ up into BC and Alberta east of the Cascades into Montana. It is a native grass that will reclaim logged or burned over forested sites and may remain in Lodgepole stands….where it will tolerate drought. Recall that such sites are wetter than our local conditions, by a good 10″ and more a year. With irrigation on these sites, it will probably perform adequately. However this is desert. It does seem an odd choice here as it is not a part of the Sagebrush Steppe or Grassland area communities.. I’m a little confused by this. As the season extends into July, it is apparent that this was not planted or failed to survive the winter. Interestingly these two ‘water quality’ areas were to be ‘seeded’ with Idaho Fescue, another failure.

How Plant Availability Drives Plant Decisions

The state of Oregon is one of the largest producers in the nation of landscape nursery stock. Growers here literally supply the nation. The Willamette Valley is ideal for nursery production. We can grow a huge diversity of plants most other areas cannot. The industry in Oregon focuses on what will sell elsewhere. 98% of this country’s population, the buying public, doesn’t live in Oregon. We grow plants adaptable to other regions in this country. At the same time, Oregon’s growers supply plants for the local market. What this means is that when we shop at Oregon garden centers we see what is offered to the rest of the country. Their demand, their growing conditions, can be very different than ours. Fortunately we have many smaller specialty growers here and they tend to grow plants more closely suited to our regional and local conditions. Local garden centers tend to buy primarily from these larger national growers. They produce plants in high volume, and with that volume comes lower unit costs of production, they can grow things more cheaply than smaller producers. Many better garden centers will augment the stock they get from the large producers with plant material from smaller specialty growers and those growing natives for localized conditions. This is why Oregon nurseries produce northern red oaks, red maples, and many other plants suited to other regions and climates, but not so much to ours. We are a small share of their market. If you want regionally appropriate plants, it often requires more effort to source them, and it can be more expensive as smaller growers don’t have the economies of scale of the ‘big boys’. 

Consumers, naturally, visit garden centers, and expect that the plants are good choices for our local conditions. Sadly this isn’t always the case. Too often what we find can be classed as good enough. Locally, residents become conditioned to this range of choices, we even come to expect them. Public entities have a responsibility to their residents to provide them with the best ‘product’. Public Parks and projects represent significant investments and are generally for the relative long term. There generally isn’t money to redo and correct things even when staff is knowledgable and motivated to make the corrections. Public projects then should use regionally appropriate plant material, we should be creating landscapes which are more sustainable and require fewer resources and energy to maintain and this requires the interest and knowledge to do so. 

I’m not arguing strictly for native plants from immediate local plant communities, although they should play an important central role. There are many, many, plants out there from other regions with similar conditions as ours, which can play important roles here, especially given our changing climate. Growers should be ‘encouraged’ to choose plants to produce for local market, that we as buyers could then purchase, supporting the local retailers whom are making the effort to provide us with natives and plants ‘best’ adapted to the conditions we have here.

Irrigation

Irrigation of these ‘native’ areas here will be problematic. The additional water will tip the competitive balance in favor of other species, and weeds, even if one were to plant the ‘perfect’ native community. Bare surface soil occurs throughout these communities, the roots of their healthy member species occupying the ground underneath limiting the possible invasion of many individual weeds. Adding water, however, ‘tips’ this balance and encourages a denser community and likely other species which may be undesirable. Those grasses used in the Park, include multiple bunch grasses. They don’t form an unbroken turf so there will be bare soil between them providing possible germination and growing space for other plants. The Blue Bunch Wheatgrass may take some of this, but these and the other native grasses aren’t spreaders. A spreading habit is a disadvantage here given the water situation. 

If these beds are irrigated, without continuous cover, opportunistic weeds, will more than likely germinate and compete for these vacant spaces, which because of the plants themselves and spacing, will be plentiful. This will make maintenance problematic. Irrigation in a summer dry climate such as this will always provide opportunity for weeds, often of Eurasian origin, to invade (whether it’s here or in the Willamette Valley). Many of our weeds have travelled around the world with us, as we disturb the native landscapes and recreate the one we desire, here having to add considerably more summer water to make them ‘work’. This supports many of the weeds we have brought along with us. Because of the size of the bed areas here, probably close to an acre, this can translate into a huge maintenance burden. I don’t know what local Park’s maintenance policy is, their staffing level, or their level of knowledge and expertise, but this often means the use of more herbicides, both post and or pre-emergent. Their use inhibits progress towards a dynamic and stable plant community maintenance staff can work with, while creating additional losses by the inevitable event of overspray. Our maintenance practices and strategies often work to keep landscapes in a perpetual state of disruption and imbalance. These perpetuate conditions that will require more work.

Mixing plants with different water requirements sets up an impossible maintenance situation. If all of the plants have a similar requirement in a bed/zone above the given local conditions, irrigation can be tuned for them and the maintenance burden reduced, provided a more or less complete community is installed. Gaps in the community will support weed growth. Tune the amount of supplemental irrigation ‘down’, adjust the plant community appropriately and the maintenance required will decrease. In this sense the solution is simple and direct. Design, plant and maintain with zero supplemental water for a more or less complete native, xeric, community.

Planting

I was not around to observe planting, nor am I aware of the City’s planting specifications. When ‘we’ contracted out landscaping projects, in addition to the complete plan set and plant list, was a manual containing the specifications of how all work was to be completed, including soil prep and how plants were to be planted. Not having access to these here, I have few a points to make in general.

We did not arrive and I did not observe any of this project until late November. Planting work was still underway. Many plants were still in their containers either spotted out in the positions where they were to be planted or, in some cases, held collectively on the ground, exposed, near where the crew’s trailer was parked on NW 25th. I have no knowledge of how plants were cared for on site before planting, of how or even if they were irrigated while awaiting planting. Irrigation heads were not all installed at the time, the system not operational. My concern at the time was twofold, first that the plant material may have been unduly stressed by drought in their containers or after having been planted out in the relatively dry ground, their roots having had no time to grow out into the surrounding soil.

Second, was the fact that many nights, prior to planting out, we experienced freezing low temps including a several day period of single digit and colder lows. Unplanted, containerized material, is much more likely to suffer freeze damage than material planted out in the ground. I don’t have dates, but much of the material planted along Spruce sat exposed and unprotected well into December as did other material held back along NW 25th. It was not heeled in. There was no overhead protection, no ‘frost cloth’ which can provide several degrees of protection in addition to protection from desiccating winds. There were many plugs left out on the ground as late as Jan. 28th, including Iris and Carex. My concern at the time was that the root balls could freeze through killing roots.

Another concern was that the deciduous trees were planted without removing them from their felt ‘grow bags’. Grow bags, burlap, cages, containers of any type should be removed prior to planting as they can negatively effect future root growth which is essential for a healthy plant. Grow bags are popular among many nursery producers because they deliver advantages for the grower, including reduced harvest cost; smaller, lighter root balls making handling, which translates into congested rooting. They do make ‘packing and shipping easier. They also reduce, but may not eliminate the problem of circling roots when properly used. Limited testing has shown, for some species, a net benefit for trees grown in bags. Trees grown and planted out in them ‘may’ grow out of their original ‘root ball’ better than those grown in black plastic pots. May….The literature does say that the fabric type bags allow roots to penetrate into surrounding soil, but is this a true advantage or is it marketing speech?  While grow bags, when properly used, do reduce the likelihood of circling/girdling roots which can be disastrous for the plant later, their physical presence over time will act to inhibit root growth out into the surrounding soil. I would suspect much depends on the source nursery’s practices, how long a tree stays in a given size bag. What is the fate of trees grown in bags ten and twenty years later? Do they overcome the limits of the bag or do the containerized portion of the roots become a point of failure later resulting in the tree toppling or limiting growth. Do they become healthy mature trees or is their healthy lifetimes more limited? Do nurseries move trees to larger bags over time, it doesn’t appear so.

They argue that the bags must be left in place. Limited research shows that root growth is concentrated within the bag, to less of an extent than it would be by a plastic pot, but it would be limited. Again, time in a bag or pot is a critical variable and both will effect the future growth of their roots. In the studies I saw no comparisons were made with field grown trees in the soil which were harvested bare root nor with those grown BxB that were properly root pruned. There was no mention of how trees compare with those trees planted out after ‘root washing’ and pruning of them for structure, as many educators and professionals argue. I have concerns about the long term health of trees produced and planted in grow bags and doubt whether a single strategy of any kind is best for all species as each species demonstrates variable root toughness regarding their handling. I would need more studies of this practice to feel comfortable with it and not just take a nurseryman’s insistent claim that the bag must remain in place. All other Nursery  production methods, result in root disturbance at harvest time and or planting. Which is best for the long term health of the tree? We are ‘forced’ into these compromises when we restrict ourselves to larger caliper sized trees going into the ground. A smaller tree will more likely have a good root structure to begin with. Holding it in the field, or moving it progressively to larger pot sizes over time, increases the likelihood of bad root structure. Of course, then we run up against the problem of instant gratification. Small trees don’t provide the physical impact. This is especially important given that trees, in terms of our own life times, are long term investments. Lower costs, relatively quick establishment and decent early growth is only part of the need. We need to remember that all nursery production is contrived and ‘artificial’.

Maintenance and Use

Any evaluation of a landscape must consider the capacities, practices and policies which direct and limit those who will be doing the maintenance. The ‘best’, the most condition sensitive design conceivable, will fail or succeed based on the use of the site and its care. As humans we individually and collectively have a major impact on our landscapes. Living in towns and cities our impacts are concentrated locally. Historically we have been largely a disruptive force, ‘developing’ land for our limited purposes, leaving the needs of countless other species unaddressed, pushing them to lands, if available, as yet free of development pressures. In the case of plants, which are far less mobile than wildlife, local populations are easily eliminated, extirpated. Most species simply cannot exist without their places and intact communities. Under such conditions the ‘survivors’ will be those best adapted, our familiar common weeds which travel with us and ruderal species, those ‘locals’ which tend to act as pioneers. As we continue ‘developing’ sites, our vision, and its implementation, shape and limit the world. We too often exclude the ‘wild’ from our plans or assume that it is elastic or adaptable enough to survive elsewhere. To accommodate the wild within our human communities requires an understanding and respect for it that is not here today. Of course, some people don’t see the need to do this at all and view nature as inexhaustible if they give it much thought at all. Some attribute little value to it and don’t care. What are we willing and able to pay for? Our economy and our approach to the land is ‘consumptive’ and extractive, both of which value only that which meets our immediate and limited demands. We value utility…in the immediate future. What does it do for us? The pre-existing landscape is often viewed as an obstacle to progress as we work to achieve an exclusive future. Our maintenance of this reformatted landscape follows this same pattern, ignoring what we don’t value and caring for that which we do.

The ‘partner’ of this undervaluing is a general ignorance of the landscape and how it ‘works’. The work is commonly simplified to a series of scheduled tasks. What doesn’t fit into that is readily sacrificed. Such an approach is counter to nature and, ultimately, counter to ourselves. To care for a landscape, is to value its health as a whole. As a part of nature, when we forget this, we are working against ourselves. When we ‘forget’, the health of that whole is neglected and declines, largely unnoticed by those doing the maintenance and many of those living nearby. Our ‘practice’ is expected and largely unquestioned. That which we don’t value, we make very little effort to understand, and without understanding, we will manage it in a way that allows it to decline in terms of its health…the landscape will be in a perpetual state of decline as our actions continue the ‘wave’ of ‘disturbance’ which began with our first occupation and ‘use’ of a place…largely ignorant of place. It need not be this way. Maintenance of a landscape, when we value its health, requires commitment and sensitivity to the cycles, forces and life encompassed within it. This requires a knowledgable and dedicated staff, one that is supported in its efforts and, in the case of Parks, users who respect the place and work.

Users are important to this process. How they use a landscape will be reflected in the work required of the maintenance staff. In many cases abuse, willful or ignorant, may be beyond a staff’s ability to repair, I certainly saw this repeatedly in my own work. It is important that users understand and value these landscapes. Users share a responsibility to place. The freedom to use a place, to enjoy its beauty and features depends on this relationship. We have a collective impact. Ignorance does not excuse irresponsible and destructive behavior. Its effects are accumulative and we share responsibility. Landscapes are ‘fragile’. Use needs to respect the health of a place. The health, beauty and capacity of a place is limited. To deliver that value to us the users, requires the we act responsibly, which requires that we recognize our role in protecting or even enhancing it. As a part of a living landscape, we the users, must behave responsibly. With any freedom comes responsibility, or before too long the system will ‘crash’.

When we build places which we value only in terms of their utility to us, we don’t see them as a whole, nor do we work to protect them, that’s, at best, a secondary concern…somebody else’s job. We need to view landscapes as organic, dynamic, living, systems which can only function well when they are whole, intact, healthy. If maintenance’s concerns are simply keeping a landscape green and growing, we are entering the relationship unprepared. Our contrived landscape will slide further out of balance as our work does little to support and develop the cycles and collective ‘forces’ at work and they will move the entire system, landscape’, further away from the designer’s intent, further away from what a living community, landscape, can and should be. Only our continuing efforts to maintain that goal of health, staves off its decline. To work with those forces and cycles requires an awareness on the part of the maintenance staff, management and the public which ‘uses’ the place. This requires education and a reprioritizing of value. Landscapes are dynamic, living, systems. They are not fixed, built, turnkey features. They require our engagement as involved partners. In such a relationship they can evolve into more mature, complex, systems capable of responding to disruptions. Such a landscape will require less of us in terms of energy and resources from outside of itself at least to the extent that our design and use of a place is consistent with the conditions and natural cycles of the place.

As of the date of posting, July 7, 2023, the City of Redmond, has not accepted this Park. Its responsibility is still in the hands of the contractor and developer. There are significant shortfalls that the City expects to be corrected.

City of Redmond, Oregon, Parks

Central Oregon production nurseries and seed suppliers specializing in local and regional natives (this is not a complete list of growers):

BFI Native Seeds, is a seed supplier operating out of Moses Lake, WA if your seed source requirements don’t demand the most local sourcing for a species. 

Clearwater Native Plant Nursery (wholesale only) 1980 SW 55th Street, Redmond, OR 97756

You also might want to check out the Deschutes Basin Native Seed Bank for locally adapted seed and information for your projects.

Great Basin Native Plant Nursery (wholesale only) 63635 Deschutes Market Road, Bend, OR

Humble Roots Farm and Nursery, (retail) 1550 Dry Creek Rd, Mosier, OR. 97040

Seven Oaks Native Nursery, (wholesale), 29730 Harvest Drive SW, Albany, OR 97321 Yes, these guys are in the Willamette Valley, but they grow natives for the western US, not just west of the Cascades.

Wintercreek Nursery, (retail) 63405 Deschutes Market Rd, Bend, Oregon 97701