Summer Round Up
Suzie and her mom, Joy, collecting western redbud (Cercis occidentalis) seeds a couple weeks ago.
The summer seed collection season will be winding down over the next couple months as we shift into cooler, moister fall weather. This time of year we are usually too busy with seed collecting and cleaning to do much blog writing, but we wanted to share some highlights from this spring and summer before the summer slips away.
On May 23rd Suzie Savoie of Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds gave a presentation, Food Plants for Butterflies Part 2, for Pollinator Project Rogue Valley. This presentation highlights native plants that are beneficial for butterflies in southwest Oregon and northwest California. You can watch the Zoom presentation below to learn more about native plants that butterflies love!
On June 1st, Suzie gave a presentation, Growing Native Plants from Seed, for the Jackson County Master Gardeners Association at the OSU Extension meeting room in Central Point in southern Oregon. This in-person presentation covered the basics of growing native plants from seed using simple techniques for the native home nursery.
On June 17th Suzie and Luke gave a tour of the Troon Vineyard Native Plant and Pollinator Botanical Garden, at Troon Vineyard in the Applegate Valley in southern Oregon. Suzie and Luke from Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds helped create the project and are really pleased to share the abundance of blooms, butterflies and bees in the native garden! Below are some photos of the tour and videos of the pollinator profusion on a couple species of wildflower growing in the gardens: coyote mint and arrowleaf buckwheat!
On July 1st Suzie led the first of a two-part workshop on private, conserved land below Mt. Ashland in southern Oregon, where participants were able to tour Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seed’s seven year old native seeding project on the property, and learn about how it was established. Workshop participants learned to identify different species, as well as the specific growing requirements to grow them from seed. Participants also learned to identify and pull non-native plants that have seeded into the gardens, and some time was spent pulling weeds and talking about weed management and overall site maintenance. You can view the photos from Part 1 of the workshop at PPRV’s photo album from the day at the following link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/rdxTVE8ZzcGSkh2R6
Part 2 of the workshop is coming up this coming weekend, and will be focused on seed collection, seed cleaning, seed sowing, and more hands-on activities. We’re looking forward to it!
On July 14-16 Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds (KSNS) sponsored the Siskiyou Crest Festival, organized by the Siskiyou Crest Coalition, that took place in Williams in southern Oregon. We were one of many businesses, non-profits, and individuals that chipped in to make the event a success! The event featured a series of field trips, speakers, poetry, an art show, and so much more! Luke from KSNS was part of a keynote speaker lineup at the event, with his presentation, The Siskiyou Crest: Relationships, Biodiversity & Connectivity. And Luke and Suzie led one of the free field trips on July 14th, as part of the Festival, up to Lily Pad Lake in the Red Buttes Wilderness.
And of course we continue to be out and about and in the field as much as possible collecting seeds to bring you the species you want to grow! Every year is different, with some species producing seed more than others, but every year we add new species to our offerings, and this year is no different. We’ve recently added the following new, late blooming wildflower species to our SHOP page:
Bidens frondosa – Sticktight
We hope you get outside in some wild places in nature and enjoy the end of summer and start dreaming of seeding and planting native plants this fall!
grow native, Klamath-Siskiyou, native plants, native pollinator plant, native seed collection, native seeds