| What's New at RCP
Meet Nora Parkhurst, this month's featured local expert!
Nora and her husband Kevin were the very first retail customers to visit Rugged Country Plant's Crockett Road nursery last spring. As soon as we met, we knew it was the beginning of a cooperation that would benefit many folks looking for help with their garden and landscaping designs.
Working with the unique palette of the intermountain west's native plants is just an extension of Nora's life-long passion for all things green. Before moving to the Walla Walla Valley, Nora actively used her Certified Professional Horticulturalist expertise, with 10 years in the nursery business, all over the Seattle area. She also used her degree in Environmental Horticulture to teach Landscape Design at local community colleges.
Nora offers creative solutions for homeowners and businesses wanting to realize their dreams of gardens which fit their lifestyles, landscapes, and budgets. Her services include a detailed design drawn to scale and a plant list that includes common and botanical names, quantities, estimated prices of plants, and where you can purchase them -- often specifying natives available from Rugged Country Plants. Here's an example of one of Nora's recent project drawings.
Check out Nora's website at http://www.parkhurstgardens.com. She can be reached via e-mail at parkhurstgardens@comcast.net, or by phone at 206-356-3250. |
It's Here!
The 2010 Native Plant User Guide
We're pleased to present the Rugged Country Plants 2010 Native Plant User Guide, which provides profiles of 120 species of Intermountain Native plants, grouped by environmental community.
The User Guide also includes indexes by Exposure, Height, Type, and Scientific and Common Name Synonyms. And it's not only functional, it's beautiful, too: you'll want to keep this reference guide on your coffee table, so visitors can enjoy its gorgeous photography.
We consider the RCP website our "catalog," but for those who prefer to hold a catalog in their hands, the 2010 Native Plant User Guide presents the same detailed information in a full-color, spiral-bound format. This isn't just a book loaded with pretty pictures -- these plants are available right now for your projects!
Here's a testimonial we've already received from one reviewer: "The organization by Plant Communities is an outstanding feature, along with superb photos and great plant descriptions. A wonderful resource for either a beginner or an experienced native plant gardener. This book dedicates an entire page to each plant in an easy to read format. I can't recommend it highly enough."
Click here to get your 2010 Native Plant User Guide for just $19.99. The shipping is included in the price! |
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| | The Intermountain West is beginning to wake up! From the seeds in the ground to the hibernating creatures of field and forest, everything's starting to stir and look around, getting ready to reach for the sky.
Here in Milton-Freewater, we've already seen the first robins in the yard -- in the fountain, actually. The plants in the nursery are coming out of dormancy, showing their first buds. As for us, we've been dashing around getting ready for seasonal retail hours. We are now open Wednesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. through 6 p.m. Meanwhile, we're pleased to introduce Nora Parkhurst, a local independent garden designer who specializes in working with those who need a conceptual design on paper. Nora will be the first of our local experts to contribute feature articles to our newsletter. Now that it's almost spring, let's get growing! 
Rebecca Currans
Seed Specialist
Rugged Country Plants
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| Planning Your Spring Garden
You're probably itching to start planting...but it's not quite time for that in most of our region. To get your gardening itch scratched, you'd best sit down with pencil and paper, and start making lists and diagrams until it's time to transplant. Eager to install a new bed featuring local sages or grasses? Get a plan down on paper, and start ordering those plants! Thinking about planting some chokecherries or Saskatoon serviceberries for the birds to enjoy? Well, there's no time like the present to set your plans in motion. According to local expert Nora Parkhurst, a good garden design engages all five senses. So consider the following factors while formulating your design: Visual -- Bloom and foliage color, texture, varying heights, destination of paths, light and shade. Audio -- Gurgling water, birds, wind in the trees. Olfactory -- Scented blooms and scented foliage (such as juniper, pines, and sages). Tactile -- A sitting spot, or tall grasses to run your fingers through. Taste -- Berries or other edible landscaping for both humans and wildlife.
And don't forget this key factor: plants alone do not a garden make. Before the plants go in the ground, you'll need to install the necessary "hardscaping" to tie your botanical theme together into a harmonious whole. For example: Walkways need to lead the eye to some destination and have a purpose, only bending when there's an obstruction to go around. Water features, especially those with gurgling or moving water, are peaceful and refreshing, and attract wildlife. A sitting spot offers a place to take in a view, or nestle in for seclusion. Rocks add a sense of permanence and provide visual anchors. When used, they should have one-third of their bulk buried, so they look planted, not perched atop the soil. These concepts are not only critical for an effective garden design, they offer something garden-related for you to do while you wait for the last of the snow to melt and for the danger of the last spring frost to pass. Otherwise, we're ready to go when you are! |
Featured Plants
Focus on the Foothill CommunityFor this issue, we've picked out five outstanding plants that we think are ideal for those of you living in the Foothill Community: three shrubs, a flower, and a hardy fruit tree. All five thrive in areas with annual precipitation levels of 15-20 inches. |
 Blanket Flower
Gaillardia aristataThe Blanket Flower (a.k.a. Common Gaillardia) is ideal for low-water plantings. This cheerful yellow flower offers sunshine on the prairie, with red-tinted centers and, sometimes, red rings around the centers of the outer petals. Compact and tough, Blanket Flowers also sport hairy, silver-green leaves of various sizes, and are especially lovely when blended with native wildflowers. |
 Oceanspray
Holdiscus discolor
The Oceanspray (which has absolutely nothing to do with cranberries!) yields pyramids of tiny, creamy-white flowers for your summer enjoyment. Also known as Meadowsweet and Creambush, this drought-hardy shrub is shade tolerant and is as lovely in autumn as in summer. As the year ages, it provides splashes of large red leaves to liven up your garden, followed by clusters of elegant brown seed heads. |
 Mockorange
Philadelphus lewisiiAn aromatic complement to similar plants like the Oceanspray, the Mockorange (also called Syringia and Bridal Wreath) produces abundant orange-scented blossoms from late spring through early summer. Mockorange can be trimmed to a full bush lower than five feet in height, or you can let it grow to 10 or 12 feet. Idaho's state flower, this wonderfully-scented standby was cataloged by Lewis and Clark.
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 Curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany
Cercocarpus ledifoliusThe Curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany is one of the tougher plants in our collection. This moderately slow-growing, deep-rooted shrubby tree is characterized by leathery, dark green foliage that lasts throughout the winter; small red flowers appear in the summer. Its true claim to fame is its quirky seeds, each of which supports a feathery corkscrew tail 2-3 inches long. |
 Chokecherry
Prunus virginianaMany of us have given chokecherries a try, but very few have tried them twice! The fruit of the Common Chokecherry is too sour for most human tastes, but it makes an excellent, tangy jelly or syrup-and it offers a veritable feast to the birds. This versatile tree not only charms with its bejeweled fruit display in the summer, it also bears attractive six-inch spikes of yellow-centered white flowers in the spring. |
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About Rugged Country Plants
Rugged Country Plants is a family-run web order, retail and wholesale native plant nursery located in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. Our mission is to provide the highest quality water-wise, low-maintenance native plants from the Intermountain West to homeowners and the wholesale green industry in our territory. Our plants thrive in the tough conditions between the Cascades and the Rockies -- from Winthrop, Washington to Blanding, Utah, and from Whitefish, Montana to Reno, Nevada, as shown in the map below. We started producing native grass seed in 1998, and introduced Intermountain native shrubs and trees in 2001. We constantly explore the Intermountain West for attractive and exciting native plants, adding numerous species of native perennial flowers and grasses every year. Contact Information:
53671 West Crockett Road
Milton-Freewater, OR 97862
541-938-3970
Wed. - Sat. 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. PT
http://www.ruggedcountryplants.com
info@ruggedcountryplants.com |
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