Category Archives: Xeric

Holodiscus microphyllus, Rock Spiarea in Dry Canyon

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Another less common slope dweller is Holodiscus microphyllus, or Bush Ocean Spray, a deceiving name, or Rock Spiarea, which is also somewhat confusing. Confusing because Spiarea is the genus name for an entirely different genera of shrubs. So I call it simply Holodiscus. ( Botanical names can be confounding to the uninitiated. I’m not a big user of mnemonics, but I still remember first learning this plant’s close relative, Holodiscus bicolor, and the phrase immediately came to mind, ‘Holy Discus, Batman!” I know, silly, but I doubt I will ever forget that plant.)

This typically occurs on the eastern flank of the Cascades and in the mountains of SE Oregon. The common name, ‘rock’, suggests its preferred sites. I’ve not seen one in Dry Canyon bottomland. It seems most common below the east rim north of the Maple Bridge. Continue reading →

The Cut Leaf Thelypody in Dry Canyon

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[Plants of the Dry Canyon Natural Area – This will be the start of a new series focused on the plants of Redmond’s Dry Canyon. I’m creating them to be posted for ‘local’ consumption on the Friends of North Dry Canyon Natural Area. It’s a City Park including about 166 acres at the north end of Dry Canyon Park which the City has identified as a Natural Preserve. The group works as an advocate with the City, on public education and helping with on the ground work projects. I’ll identify each such post here.]

As you walk the trails below the canyon rims you will be seeing these growing scattered and in bunches. This is the Cut Leaf Thelypody, Thelypodium lacinatum. These are common where ever there’s a bit of soil between the rocks on the slopes below the rims growing amongst the tumble of massive basalt. I’ve seen these elsewhere growing in other eastside Oregon canyons with similar conditions.
These are members of the Mustard family, prolific seed producers and quite competitive. Another plant that, at least so far, doesn’t venture out into the canyon’s bottomland.
Elegant when it first starts flowering, like so many native annuals and perennials, these start declining while they proceed through their flowering season detracting from their appearance. What do I mean…each spent flower, begins to form its narrow, linear, Mustard seed capsule, quickly maturing its tiny seed and then drying, twisting and browning, while the inflorescence continues to bloom out towards its terminal end. A little messy, yes, but characteristic of these plants. We humans are relatively intolerant of such decline in our garden plants and so generally refuse them admission. Under the local wild conditions, as dry as they are, species tend to either be early flowering, when soil moisture is still most available or those like this that begin to decline before the show is over. Summer drought is a ‘cruel’ taskmaster. There are exceptions to this rule but….

https://oregonflora.org/taxa/index.php?taxon=8778

On Ornamental Trees and the Remaking/Unmaking of Place: Revising the City of Redmond’s Tree List, Part 1

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Perhaps an odd tree to start this with, Juniperus scopulorum ‘Woodward’, is not a ‘shade tree’. It is not deciduous. It is a narrow, fastigiate form of Rocky Mtn. Juniper that, growing to a height of 20′ with a 2′-3′ spread can serve as a formal accent in colder climates like ours as a ‘replacement’ for the more tender Italian Cyperss, and it can do quite well here with very little supplemental water.

Trees, specifically ornamental shade trees, have become an expected and desired part of our urban lives, at least util their leaves fall and await our cleanup. Many associate long tree lined streets and avenues with urban living. Broad Maples. Lofty Elms. Plane Trees and, in tighter spaces, perhaps Cherrys, Crabapples and flowering Plums. Urban trees provide several notable ‘environmental services’ increasing our comfort level with their cooling shade, their capacity to remove pollutants from the air, cover and nesting places for birds and the sequestration of carbon. Trees are generally viewed as a public good, necessary even for our lives. We can get quite emotional about them. So it seems a bit ‘wrong’ to suggest that this ‘ideal’ may not always be ‘best’ or even desirable.

Broadleaved deciduous shade trees are ‘naturally’ members of mesic, temperate to cold-temperate regions of the world. That is where they evolved and where when we plant them out, where they do best. When we begin planting them outside of their historic natural ranges, especially when we ignore the conditions, the disparities and the extremes between their natural ranges and those where we choose to plant them, then we can have some serious problems. The trees may struggle along, or if we remain committed to making up for our local area’s lacking, usually in the form of supplying more water, they can do reasonably well. But this suggests possible real problems as one moves further away from the conditions of a tree’s natural limits and increase the numbers planted out. Where is this water coming from and what are the impacts of removing this water from its normal and healthy cycling of which it is a part? What will be going without? And, is that cost worth the losses it creates? Our selection and planting decisions depend on how we value that which is lost! In short, the typical deciduous shade tree of our imaginings does not belong here in a desert. Continue reading →

Weeds: What We Need to Do at DCVS

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Looking NE from the gate at Northwest Way, other than a handful of juvenile Juniper there is literally nothing native of value across this roughly 9 acre spread. The other two undeveloped phases are equally bad, having a similar mix of weeds.

The question I keep hearing is, ‘What do we do?’ Many, if not most people living here now, have expressed frustration and more about the Dry Canyon Village South, DCVS’s, landscapes, specifically the berm, the mini-parks,  the Circle and the 25+ acres of undeveloped, uncared, for property we share space with. They ask me because they know I cared for Park landscapes, as a field horticulturist, for almost 30 years, Parks which often included natural areas of over 100 acres, to little neighborhood parks and intensively developed and used urban parks in the downtown core. I also haven’t been shy about my criticism of the lack of care, or of even a plan, for the neglected property we are saddled with. Anyone who has cared for a landscape can see the problem here. Leaving disturbed and neglected properties on their own is not a plan and can lead only to their further deterioration and continuing, worsening, ‘weed pressure on the adjacent developed landscapes. Continue reading →

On Healing: Life, Place and Relationship in Oregon’s Great Basin Country

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The massive fault block of Hart Mountain, Poker Jim Rim in the distance to the north. The gravel county road switchbacks up the more than 3,000′ beginning from the center in the distance here. From here this is how you get to Steens Mountain without doing miles of backtracking.

I woke up this morning to the sound of bird song…nothing else. There were Western Meadowlarks and a multitude of others, I’m sorry to say I don’t know, but beautiful and distinct. I was laying in bed, atop our truck, thinking about how rare an event this is for so many of us…not that the birds aren’t here greeting the morning every day, but that so many of us aren’t ‘available’ to hear them, sequestered away safely in our homes, otherwise occupied or, more commonly, the birds literally excluded from our urbanized and ‘modern’ places of residence, their own places developed/destroyed. Entire neighborhoods and cities excluding all but the most common songbirds and passerine species.  Little quarter is afforded most wildlife in modern development…and that upon which their lives depend.  Continue reading →

The Flushing/Testing of Redmond’s New Municpal Well Into Dry Canyon’s Natural Preserve

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This shows the effected portion of Dry Canyon Park from Antler, at the bottom, where the new municipal well is located, north to the Maple St. Bridge. The Fir connector trail shows up faintly cutting diagonally across the canyon from Fir Ave, 3 blocks north of John Tuck School. West Canyon Rim Park is labelled on the the left. The trail/dam cuts up, northeasterly from it, gray as it is asphalted, faintly in the pic. The water travelled 200 yds north of it, a bit short of halfway up to the Maple Bridge.

I’ve adopted Redmond’s Dry Canyon Park as a project, so I’ve gotten kind of possessive about things that threaten and effect it…but it is a City Park and cities often have competing demands and priorities. In this case the City is under considerable pressure to keep growing. People and businesses are still arriving here at a high rate and this puts demands on its public infrastructure, in this case its water supply. A city of its size also finds itself in need of more Park lands as people’s private space shrinks, population density increases and we all turn to the same limited landscapes for recreation. Compound this with the demand of wildlife and plants for relatively undisturbed landscapes on which they can simply live. Well, this is a case where two of these priorities have come into conflict, and as usual, the utilitarian demands have won out over those for the living natural world (There is no division of the City or local advocacy group, at this point, speaking up for the natural landscape and the life it supports). The utilitarian ‘needs’ of the community are simply a higher priority than those of the natural world. The State is responsible for our water resource and has control over adding new wells and how that is to be done. It is in at least part a health and safety issue. In this role they require that municipalities flush the wells and conduct a flow test to determine rate, drawdown and recovery. This was to be done by running it at full volume 24 hours a day for four days. At 3,500 gals./min. That’s 5 million gals per day. 20 million gals total. That water must go somewhere. It would have overwhelmed our wastewater treatment plant which is running at close to capacity already so it couldn’t be wasted down a manhole…so, it had to be wasted into the landscape of the Canyon itself.

The City contested this amount. This is almost double the amount used by by all residents on a typical winter day of 2.7 million gallons (In summer, due to landscape irrigation the daily amount jumps to 15.8 million gals.). This was all to be ‘wasted’ across the canyon floor. The City had concerns with damage to area infrastructure and paved paths. This requirement was cut in half and eventually to a single 12 hour period as the flooding/washing problem played out. The amount flushed was 2.5 million gals.

April 14, 2024

The filling ‘reservoir’ abutting the north path.

I was unaware of the details of this as I walked the stretch of path this afternoon  going north along the west side dirt path, from the trail connector between the main paved trail, extending from the Fir Ave. stairs. I was surprised at all of the surface erosion on and around the dirt path. In some places a foot or more of path had been scoured away, flushed out into the surrounding landscape, its Bitterbrush, Rabbitbrush and other low plants. This erosion continued north following the contours and the trail.

The northern extreme of the test run, where the flow slowed and settled all of the light organic debris.

As the flow spreads and slows larger denser material settles out. Here sediment was deposited in the trail itself and on the ground where the water fanned out.

The flooding had continued a couple hundred yards to where the flow stopped depositing a layer of organic debris the water had carried along.

(I learned on the 17th that this was the result of a test to see what kind of damage might occur and to gauge how the water would spread across the site. This is why the crew was there on the 17th. The test was an attempt to determine the flow pattern so that they could minimize damage.) Continue reading →

Dry Canyon Proposal: the need for change in maintenance, use and planning

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[The following is a piece I wrote and sent to our local Parks staff, its advisory citizens committee, mayor and city manager…I got little back in response. I’ve developed a relationship with one of the city arborists and the park’s planner as well as have met several active neighbors interested in protecting Dry Canyon’s natural areas, several of whom have natural resources backgrounds with agencies. The City has no natural resource or botanical staff. There is no formalized friends group, nor is their an outreach and public education program that addresses these problems and the role of residents in their solution. Signage is minimal and inadequate. Their horticultural expertise would also seem quite limited. This is understandable as the City’s population has grown very rapidly in recent years. The need for such programs and an increase in expertise on staff will only increase as Redmond’s population continues to grow.]

 

Redmond’s Dry Canyon looking south from the west rim on the Maple Street Bridge. The area in the immediate foreground burned this last summer.

A typical view at the base of a section of relatively unbroken rim on the east side.

The canyon floor is variable, but as this pic shows, a solid layer of hardened lava underlies what soil is here, either blown in or washed in, a limiting factor of what can grow here. Rabbitbrush is a common and ubiquitous native pioneer.

Match of the canyon floor is recovering from pasture use. These areas have relatively deep soils and are still transitioning with many weedy mustards, annual grasses like Cheat and planted grasses like Crested Wheat and Annual Barley. Native Bluebunch Wheat is scattered as are other natives. Gray Rabbitbrush, a native seral species has moved into much of it, but the weeds are dominant. Sagebrush and Bitterbrush are more at the edges and lower rim areas.

This section of bottomland, former pasture, probably burned not that long ago, has quite a colony of Rabbitbrush coming along, all it would appear of even age, suggesting a fire. Rabbitbrush are early colonizers and ‘prepare’ the way for natives to follow. This is just north of the Maple Bridge.

This area, maybe 5 acres, burned in July. It will be interesting to see what comes back and what the City may plant??? Fire kills Sagebrush and Juniper, while it seems to favor Cheatgrass. So far, April ’24, nothing has been replanted. The window for seeding is closed. Rabbitbrush can survive a burn. This site is unfenced, with very fragile soils and we’ve already observed new bike trails in it.

My wife and I are both recent returnees to Central Oregon having both grown up here. We are also frequent walkers in Dry Canyon, a place I spent many hours in playing and exploring as a kid in the 60’s. Redmond has changed a lot over the intervening years…change that continues apace as it grows. I’m not going to whine about the ‘good old days’ and things lost. Much of the change I welcome or at least accept (We did move back!), but population growth, in addition to bringing along economic vitality and stability, new and enriching opportunities and a more diverse community, increases the ‘pressures’ on the naturally limited assets that largely define the place and attract residents. I’m speaking here of the natural landscape, its features and the opportunities which it affords us for recreation and quiet enjoyment. Realtors were once fond of saying that no one is making new land, as a prompt for buying…it is a fixed and limited quantity. This limitation has profound implications for a growing population. We have far more people today ‘enjoying’ a limited, and increasingly over utilized landscape. Continue reading →

Knapweeds in Redmond’s Dry Canyon and the Pursuit of a Healthy Landscape

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Redmond’s Dry Canyon looking south from the west rim on the Maple Street Bridge. The area in the immediate foreground burned this last summer.

If you garden, or maintain a landscape, you come to understand that not all weeds are the same. Each will have its own ‘strengths’, or perhaps you might call it ‘virulence’. Any particular weed, just like any other plant, will respond ‘positively’ to supportive growing conditions, conditions which often closely align with those which exist in its place of origin. Plant explorers and nursery growers are always looking for ‘new’ plants for landscape use. in a way, they have to walk a fine line. They must find plants, that with reasonable effort on the part of the gardener, can thrive across a range of conditions, unless they are looking for specialty plants, for narrow, niche, markets. The introduction of new plants must be somewhat measured, our enthusiasm tempered, because plants which are too adaptable, too vigorous, may possess the ability to escape our cultured gardens and find a place in the surrounding, uncultivated, landscape.

For Central Oregon, when we look beyond our regional natives, we must keep this in mind. Exotics from similar growing and climatic regions around the world offer both promise and threat. We want our plants to be successful, but not too. Sometimes through the process of trade, the movement of livestock and agricultural products, particularly aggressive species hitch a ride. A few weed seeds can be easy to miss. If they are aggressive enough and go unnoticed, a distinct possibility, it is likely that they wont be detected until a sizable local population asserts itself…and if no one is watching, that can be a fateful error. One group of plants, with many wonderful possibilities, also include species which can be exceedingly problematic here in Central Oregon, these are from regions sometimes referred to as Steppe. Continue reading →

On Weeds, Disruption and the Breaking of Native Plant Communities: Toward a More Informed Working Definition of Weeds

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The bottom land in Redmond’s Dry Canyon was used for decades as low quality pasture, the native community pretty much obliterated. Those areas with surface rock are more likely to retain more of the original plant community, although Cheatgrass has invaded much of those areas as well. The is looking southerly over one of the larger ‘pasture’ areas near the disc golf course. There is very little Cheatgrass through this section south of West Rim Park. It includes a few native seral species which typically occupy disturbed sites as a site transitions, including Gray Rabbitbrush you see here. Found in this area too is Secale cereale, Annual Rye, a non-native, which appears to have been planted along more formal paths to limit Cheatgrass spread(?).  Junipers are moving in. Sagebrush hasn’t yet.

It is commonly said that a weed is a plant out of place…and of course ‘we’ are the one’s who decide this. Some will try to argue that there are no weeds, that all plants belong and if we only left weeds alone landscapes would reach a balance on their own. If one’s time frame is long enough this may be the case, though this will take considerably longer than one of our lifetimes, and then there is our inability to actually leave landscapes on their own, or to at least consciously moderate our disturbance of them. Weeds are plants. They are not a separate classification of plants. They are plants removed from their places of origin and released into another where they have competitive advantages. Most people still simply tend to refer to plants they don’t like or want as weeds. These positions are at odds with one another. This leads to confusion and a lack of clarity, undermining any urgency to take action.

Weeds have become ‘personal’, their status a matter of ‘opinion’….A weed is a weed only if “I” agree that it is, or perhaps some ‘expert’, such as when agricultural scientist identify them as an economic threat to farms and label them as ‘noxious’. Without agreement and urgency there is a tendency to do nothing about them. Plants in general are attributed little intrinsic value. For many people they are just there. Native plants we vaguely understand as belonging to a place, but most people would be hard pressed to identify and name many at all. Quite different species are often lumped together, their relationships unnoticed. Natives are reduced to being ‘background’, their status reduced to decoration, attractive or not, a ‘space’ filler, perhaps a hinderance to what we would chose to do with a place. Continue reading →

Spruce Park, Redmond’s Newest Park and Our Neighbor: a horticultural critique

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Redmond’s Spruce Park looking NNE from the SW corner toward Gray Butte and Smith Rock in the background. The border beds which follow much of the loop path are ‘native’ plantings according to the conceptual plan. It is common to claim that most of the plants are natives in designed natural areas, but native is not synonymous with ‘natural’. Although natives are used here concessions have been made including such plants as Echinacea purpurea ‘Pow Wow Wildberry’ and Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’. In a strict sense Ponderosa Pine aren’t native to this immediate locale either, they require more precipitation than we normally get and the Autumn Blaze Maples are a hybrid of two northeastern North American species.

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. Continue reading →