bobm
Garden Master
When we moved to the PNW, every nursery that we whent to said to "plant native plants". The City of Vancouver,Wa. had an adviser that would come to your home and advise what "native plants" to plant on your property. I called and he came over and gave me a whole list of plants that he said was foolproof to grow. I planted the plants that were advised. The results about 4 years later ... the only native to survive is one bear berry plant ( out of 8 that I planted) the rest are no where to be seen due to frost, aphids,diseases, tent caterpillars, caterpillars, grasshoppers, gophers, moles, slugs, weeds, wet feet, etc. What this adviser failed to consider, and I showed him the evidence when he first arrived, was that the developer of this lot was that this land was a former swamp / wetland that was filled first with riff raff rocks, then fill dirt from many different places and quality was dumped on top of the rocks. The other natives still here are the tons of moss and lichen covered volcano rock boulders ( MT. St. Helens ) that I brought in from a forested area that was being cleared of them just 4 miles from here. The other native plants going strong here are several types of moss that grows everywhere around here. The named varieties of blueberries and commercial hybrid strawberries are thriving and producing bountiful crops. All of my other trees, bushes , shrubs, are grafted onto other rootstock other than their own and hybrids that I purchased from the Master Gardener annual sales sponsored by Washington State University with several plants that origanally were imported from N. Africa, Australia, Siberia, and China, and are doing well. Evidenced by my garden being chosen by Clark County for the past 2 years for their annual garden tour. I just found out that the County wants to put my garden on this year's tour as well. What are the results of your planting ventures that you were advised would be fool proof ?
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