This is a coppice and shrubland guild designed for a water receiving low spot at Foxhall garden. This area is inundated for several days following rainfall in Winter, and stays moist into early Summer.
Introduction
This area is in zone 2 and is one of two paths to the chicken pen, so trailside could be considered zone 1 as it will get daily travel. Trails are in yellow, circles are the blueberry rings.
There are four areas within this guild:
- trailside - herbaceous plantings along the main path, a short way through the blueberry shrubland, including the trail itself.
- blueberry rings - on alternative sides of the trail are rings of blueberries. The long way through is to follow a serpentine path (yellow lines) on the outside of the blueberry rings doing a loopty loop through the site during blueberry season while tending chickens.
- blueberry hollows - inside the ring of blueberries is a fairly shade tolerant herbaceous mulch planting designed to be cut before the drought comes and used to mulch the blueberries.
- shrubland - which surrounds the more intensively managed blueberry circles and trailside, occasionally harvested for poles, osiers, medicines and flowers.
Shrubland
- Salix scouleriana - Scouler's willow - common drought tolerant willow, fast growing, coppiced primarily for osiers and poles, with medicinal harvest as necessary.
- Salix discolor - Pussy willow - Coppiced for floral harvest.
- Myrica gale - sweet gale. similar to bay leaf, with medicinal properties, a couple plants in the wetest areas.
- Fraxinus latifolia - Oregon white ash - a few individuals coppiced mostly on the north side of the patch. Wood is strong and burns hot and clean. Poles make good tool handles. Nice fall color.
- Petasites frigidus - coltsfoot, cough medicine, primeaval leaves, very sprawly aggressive native.
- Montia siberica - miner's lettuce/spring beauty. se;f-sows in gaps.
- Plantago lanceolata - plantain, food/medicine
- Rumex spp. - dock - medicine
Blueberry Circles
- Vaccinium coryombosum - Highbush blueberry - arranged in circles of 6 or so plants each.
Blueberry Hollows
- Juncus effusus - soft rush - very aggressive, nice cut flower potential. cutting in early summer will reduce seedbank spread. Long lived mulch.
- need a wandering plant that comes later in the season to grow amongst the cut soft rush as it regrows?
- is there another good mulch plant to try here?
Trailside
- Asparagus - A fried of mine said in naturalizes in wet ditches in the mid-west US. In clumps, dump some manure under big leaf maple leaves in fall to mark and reduce competition.
- Veronica americana - speedwell/brooklime - salad element. re-seeds
- Metha spicata - spearmint - tea
- Montia siberica - miner's lettuce/spring beauty - more salad, re-seeds
- what other perennial food plants can take winter flooding?
Winter Pool
- Mimulus guttatus - monkey flower, pretty
- Potentilla anserina-pacifica - silverweed, roots edible, sprawly binder
- Iris tenax - wild, spikey flower
- Iris japonica - japanese iris, spikey flower
- is there an Iris with edible root like I. pseudoacorus that is not invasive?!
