The Pacific Northwest is a cool, wet place that is known worldwide for its huge Western Red Cedar, Douglas-fir, and Western Hemlock trees. It is in the temperate rainforest, an ecosystem that spreads down from the bottom of Alaska to the top of California on the ocean side of the Coast and Cascade mountain ranges. Water-filled clouds from the ocean move inland and get forced up and over the mountains, where they drop their rain.
Micro-Habitats of the Pacific Northwest
Like any ecosystem, the Pacific Northwest is full of micro-habitats. As you walk through the forest of the Pacific Northwest, watch the patterns of the landscape. There are open spaces where trees have fallen down. In these spaces, new shrubs like thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) and salmonberry (Rubus spectabiliis) reach up to the sky.
Other parts of the forest are very shady because they are covered in mature trees. Underneath these trees, hardy groundcovers, ferns, and shade-loving trees like vine maples (Acer circinatum) grow. In your garden, you can replicate these environments to a degree. If you have an open place, you can grow light-loving plants. If you have shade, you are in luck: many Pacific Northwest plants thrive in the shade.
Damp Wood Provides Wet Homes for Pacific Northwest Plants
Add elements of natural wetland and riparian biodiversity to your forested garden landscape. In the forest, there are fallen trees. These trees are called nurse logs or nurse stumps, and they are a very important habitat for new plants. They provide a damp place for new plants to grow, and the rotting wood provides nutrients for baby plants.
Many larger plants like red huckleberry (Vaccinum parviflorum) and blueberry thrive on the acidity of this wood. Plant pieces of rotting wood in your garden soil or allow cut trees to be one of the landscape features in your garden. Drill holes in them and encourage the process of decomposition by planting native plants in the wood.
Streams Are Important to Pacific Northwest Plants and Animals
While we can’t all have a creek in our backyard, you can add water, whether it is moving or still. Streams and rivers are a dominant feature of the Pacific Northwest landscape. They are a source of biodiversity in themselves, since salmon and trout live in them and bears come to feast on the salmon. Smaller animals like mayflies and caddisflies live in the water and feed the fish. Streams and streamside environments are biodiversity hotspots that attract bears, birds, and other kinds of wildlife. Add a pondless waterfall, stream, or a pond to the garden to attract native birds and invertebrates to the garden.
Wetland and Stream Side Habitats Provide Homes for Native Northwest Plants
In the Pacific Northwest, wetlands abound, whether these are riverside riparian habitats, bogs, or marshes. Frogs and salamanders grow their babies in these wet environments, and birds flock to them for food, nesting sites, and on their migration routes to other parts of the continent. Like wetlands around the world, these wetlands are disappearing in more populated areas as they are controlled and drained, and people build on top of them. To counteract this impact, create damp places in your own garden. Whether you bury a container or a swimming pool to create an area of poor drainage where you can grow skunk cabbage or whether you go all out and develop a stream that uses recirculated water, you can add to the biodiversity of your neighbourhood by creating wet places for animals to live.
Add natural wetland and stream elements to your Pacific Northwest garden, or simply create moist areas where ferns and other temperate rainforest plants can thrive.
Tricia Edgar - Tricia Edgar is a gardener, environmental educator, and science writer from the Pacific Northwest.
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