Gardens that belong
to the rain
they grew up in.

Native bulb. Indigo May blooms over wet meadows. Tolerates the heavy clay and standing winter wet most of SE Portland sits on.

Evergreen structure, yellow February flowers, blue fruit for cedar waxwings. The state flower; quietly does the work of a boxwood without needing one.

First food for rufous hummingbirds returning in March. Six feet tall, deciduous, completely unfussy. We plant one in nearly every front yard.

Understory tree, multi-stem, fall color the color of a rusted kettle. Reads as Japanese maple at half the cost and twice the toughness.

Backbone of a lawn-replacement meadow. Mow twice a year, walk on it barefoot, count a hundred native bees on a July afternoon.

Native evergreen groundcover for hot strips and ecoroofs. Pink urn flowers, red berries, holds a slope unirrigated by year three.