Washington State native seed source

Submitted by fringe on Sat, 10/27/2012 - 16:09

Hi-- I am a NARGS member for ten years but new to post. I live in Seattle, Washington, and did seed collections of different native species from around the state including some of interest to fellow rock gardeners like Campanula piperi, Douglasia, Erythronium, Lewisia tweedyi, Petrophytum cinerascens, etc . I decided to make extra seed available through an online seed store, if any are interested [use link http://fringenursery.com/ ].
Washington has some nice native species and many obscure ones too. Synthyris schizantha fits into both categories. Its range is from the west slopes of the Olympic Mtns to foothills west of Mt Rainier and south to the Saddle Mtn area of NW Oregon. Where I've seen it growing at mid-elevations in western Olympics, it is abundant growing on thin soils atop boulders, in cool vertical rock walls, or on the forest floor. The flowers are arranged in a cone at the top of a long 6-8 inch stem. The unusual petals are blue with darker blue veins and look tattered or torn, sort of resembling a Soldanella. Leaves are deciduous and can grow as large as 7 inches (20cm) across though 3-4 inches is typical.

Comments


Submitted by Lori S. on Sat, 10/27/2012 - 17:31

Welcome, fringe!  Glad to see you participating here!
You certainly have some seeds for terrific plants at your site.  Synthyris schizantha is wonderful!


Submitted by cohan on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 13:16

Good to see another source for wild seed :) The Synthyris looks great, hope you'll be sharing more wild shots :)


Submitted by AmyO on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 13:23

Wow! :o what a fantastic selection! I am so tempted to place an order, but I'm not sure on the hardiness
of most of the plants for Vermont! I'll need to do a bit of research first or make a wish list and order a few things from the seed-ex.  ;)


Submitted by Mark McD on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 14:27

Hello Fringe, welcome to NARGS Forum.  Synthyris schizantha is most desirable.  My first up-and-close look at the genus Synthyris was in the garden of Roy Davidson in Bellevue Washington.  I was fortunate to live just a mile or so from Roy's house when I lived in Bellevue Washington 1982-86.  He had every species of Synthyris growing, tucked into humus pockets in a fairly steep shaded rockery; I wondered why these were so seldom grown.  I don't currently grow any, but now tempted by your very fine listing of Washington native plants.

Amy, I think most plants on the list should be perfectly hardy in Vermont, so far as cold, the challenge might be to provide the right garden habitat for them to prosper, I see a number of plants on the list which I can and do grow here on the Massachusetts - New Hampshire line. You are located about 100 miles north of me (in a strict latitude sense), so our general climate should be somewhat similar.


Submitted by Lori S. on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 14:34

McDonough wrote:

Amy, I think most plants on the list should be perfectly hardy in Vermont, so far as cold, the challenge might be to provide the right garden habitat for them to prosper, I see a number of plants on the list which I can and do grow here on the Massachusetts - New Hampshire line. You are located about 100 miles north of me (in a strict latitude sense), so our general climate should be somewhat similar.

I was about to suggest something similar... I have very few reservations about the hardiness of alpines, given their adaptation to some extremely harsh environments! Whether the garden environment one creates provides the right conditions for them is the question, indeed. 


Submitted by fringe on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 14:52

Thanks for the warm welcome.
Yes, I did all collections on my own.  I went out every other weekend from April to September to find large enough populations to collect from then return to make small collections (usually no more than 1%) then cleaning the seed when necessary.  Lots of miles traveled and work-- I don't know how the "real" collectors manage.
I did not attempt to give Zone or Hardiness ratings.  I would think that all of our natives can easily take 0F/-20C at least.  My garden in Seattle doesn't get much lower that 20F/-10C so I can't test this myself.  And most of these species are so rarely grown that no else knows either.
I will try to accept the invitation to post another species photo or two soon.


Submitted by Hoy on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 15:15

fringe wrote:

Thanks for the warm welcome.
Yes, I did all collections on my own.  I went out every other weekend from April to September to find large enough populations to collect from then return to make small collections (usually no more than 1%) then cleaning the seed when necessary.  Lots of miles traveled and work-- . . . .

Although hard work, I believe it is pretty exciting too! But you surely have to do some research when the plants are in bloom to know where to look for seeds!


Submitted by fringe on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 21:48

I do know a little about our native flora (I hope so as I have given 5 or 6 talks on the subject)-- so that did help a lot knowing where to begin to look.  And committing to collect seed committed me to get out there and re-visit familiar old places and find new ones.  Here's something new that I saw for the first time this year:  Erythronium quinaultense.  It is a tetraploid derived from a natural E. revolutum x E. montanum cross and grows on the west side of the Olympics near Lake Quinault.  But I did not collect seed since it's rarity status is still under review.  It probably is able to increase by offsets too which would be important to gardeners and propagators and land managers alike..... but even this basic fact is still unknown to the literature.  (The petals do recurve more but the rain was pulling tepals down.)


Submitted by Hoy on Mon, 10/29/2012 - 14:14

A real beauty! If you ever collect seed I assume you'll have great demand for them ;)

Polyploidy following bigeneric crosses is not an uncommon way for nature to create new species.