Year round foliage and blooms

Discussion in 'Outdoor Gardening in the Pacific Northwest' started by Amanda Living Walls, Nov 3, 2021.

  1. Amanda Living Walls

    Amanda Living Walls New Member

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    Suggestions for a native species that would have year round foliage, and also blooms occasionally. OR has blooms year round. My client is asking for roses, I am not sure if this is feasible?
     
  2. Margot

    Margot Renowned Contributor 10 Years

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    Assuming this gets regular water, it would also be useful to know how much sun the wall gets.
     
  3. Amanda Living Walls

    Amanda Living Walls New Member

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    Little to no natural light as it is on a covered patio (but will have automatic irrigation) supplemental lighting will be installed if required by the plant species
     
  4. Margot

    Margot Renowned Contributor 10 Years

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    Here are some native plants I have grown and am familiar with. There are no evergreen native plants I have ever heard of that bloom year-round. With some notable exceptions, most do not have particularly flashy flowers but, growing on a wall, even smaller flowers can be appreciated close up.

    I'd worry a little that if your client envisions the look of roses, they may be a bit disappointed with many native plant choices that would grow well on the wall. I'd be thinking green with occasional flashes of colour.

    Deer Fern and Narrow-leaved Sword Fern might grow 30 cm outward from the wall but the rest of the ferns and the perennials I've listed would stay quite tight.

    BC Native Plants for a Low-light Wall
    Ferns

    Aspidotis densa Indian’s Dream
    Asplenium trichomanes Maidenhair Spleenwort
    Blechnum spicant Deer Fern
    Cryptogramma acrostichoides Parsley Fern
    Pentagramma triangularis Goldenback Fern
    Polypodium glycerhiza Licorice Fern
    Polystichum imbricans ssp. imbricans Narrow-leaved Sword Fern

    Evergreen Perennials (useful as groundcovers)
    Antennaria microphylla Rosy Pussytoes
    * Asarum caudatum Wild Ginger
    Dryas octopetala White Mountain Avens
    Fragaria vesca Woodland Strawberry
    Heuchera micrantha Small-flowered Alumroot
    Lewisia columbiana Columbia Lewisia
    Lewisia cotyledon Bitterroot
    Linnaea borealis Twinflower
    Micranthes integrifolia Grassland Saxifrage
    * Mitella ovalis Oval-leaved Mitrewort
    Phlox diffusa Spreading Phlox
    Rhodiola integrifolia Ledge Stonecrop
    Sedum oreganum, S. spathulifolium or others
    Silene acaulis Moss Campion

    * Don't like much sun at all.
     

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    Last edited: Nov 3, 2021
  5. Georgia Strait

    Georgia Strait Generous Contributor 10 Years

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    Did I miss the original post specifying this is a wall installation ?

    i don’t know about bloom all year —- I would probably say « year round interest »

    is this a wall? Please confirm.

    what plants were identified in that (I think) West Van wall you posted about Sept. 2021?
     

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  6. Margot

    Margot Renowned Contributor 10 Years

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    I assumed this was a continuation of a thread started by @Amanda Living Walls -
    Hort Consultant Needed for Living Wall in Vancouver!
     
  7. Georgia Strait

    Georgia Strait Generous Contributor 10 Years

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    I understand

    Again I say - year round interest

    the only year round bloom are from Dollar store :) (And they don’t look too bad mixed in with real foliage - I have tried it.)

    i do like the original Heuchera when it became popular (bronze beauty or was it palace purple?)

    sword ferns of course

    salal takes ages to fill out and once established is lovely native

    plus all the other plants you list above @Margot

    as nice and modern as the living plant walls look - I am not convinced that I would personally put one on a conventional wood frame building on our climate at coast — reasons incl rodents and moisture and maintenance

    that said - I have never seen the inner workings of such a wall of plants so I am open to learning more.
     
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  8. Amanda Living Walls

    Amanda Living Walls New Member

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    This is a different project, but yes - also going to be vertical. Either using a living wall technology (multiple plantings in pockets or something similar) or plantings at the bottom that can vine up some mesh/wires/trellis.
     

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