Not sure what to grow this season? City offers library workshop on native plants

Gardeners around Spokane already feel the pangs of anticipation, and no doubt, green-thumb daydreams and garden plans are in the works, but if you’re still deciding on what to plant, the city of Spokane Water Department has a few recommendations.

At Shadle Park Library, the Water Department will present “Choosing Your Plants? Go Native!” as the next installation of its Water Wise Workshop series from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. This event will also serve as the monthly Garden4You, Spokane’s local garden club.

The following Wednesday workshops will share on a variety of topics like efficient irrigation, how to create greenery in your landscape without grass and how to landscape with fire safety in mind.

Spokane’s Water Wise program partners with various organizations to promote water stewardship in the region, working to protect the health and longevity of Spokane’s waterways and aquifer.

You may have seen signs pop up in yards promoting their SpokaneScape Lawn Replacement program, which helps locals plan landscaping projects around drought tolerant plants that require lower maintenance and water use. The program offers a $500 credit toward a participants’ utility bill if they remove a lawn and replace it with a SpokaneScape approved makeover.

The city has a few handy tips on its website to get you started on planning, but researching and selecting native and drought-tolerant plants can be a bit of an overwhelming deep dive for beginner gardeners. For a bit more information, check out SpokaneScape’s “The DIY Guide to Water Wise Landscaping,” which you can find as a downloadable PDF on its website.

It takes you through the initial planning steps and is a great way to wrap your mind around what their options are. For example, before thinking about individual plants, first start with thinking about the general categories of perennials, shrubs, ground cover, shade trees, and ornamental trees.

The magazine provides a short list of drought-tolerant keystone plants, which are native plants that have some of the biggest impacts to the local ecosystem. You may recognize a few from the list, such as coyote mint, which gives off an aromatic, minty fragrance with flowers that look like pale purple or pink pom-poms. Another is the Douglas aster, with daisy-like purple flowers with yellow centers that bloom in late summer.

You’ll be no stranger to the trees listed, including the slim, yellow-brown barked ponderosa pine or the bright orange-berried Greene’s mountain ash. There are plenty more listed in the magazine, as well as a scannable QR code in the publication for an extended list.

Another handy local resource is the Washington State University Master Gardener Program, which offers a plant clinic and resource center March through October, Monday through Friday, at 222 N. Havana St. You can call for more information at (509) 904-0747, or visit them online at extension.wsu.edu/spokane/mg.

But if you’re a little too eager for in-depth research, here are a few go-to native perennials that soon should be easy to snatch up at local nurseries.

• For a late-spring bloom, the shaggy fleabane offers white to pink flowers that add a beautiful pop in a sagebrush environment.
• To add a bit of ethereal blue-white fluffiness to your garden, look no further than Cusick’s camas. Its linear flower also blooms in late spring and early summer, and it loves moist meadows, blending in seamlessly with grass-like leaves.
• For an aromatic splash, the nettle leaf giant hyssop (commonly called horse mint) has purple flowers that grow in dense spikes, blooming from mid summer and to early fall. It’s very similar to Western giant hyssop in terms of benefits and appearance.
• It may not be the star of the show, but the bunchgrass, Idaho fescue, perfectly layers into a perennial garden with wispy foliage and a delicate blue-green color. It grows in dense clusters and has feathery, tall stalks that bloom in the spring.
• A fun option for ground-cover that also offers some casual snacking in the garden are wild strawberries. They do well in sun or partial shade and they are happy to spread out across any bare patches. The blueleaf strawberry, also known as alpine strawberry, is native to North America and does well in dry meadows and prairies.