Remodels

New Pond

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As our backyard habitat has matured, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of wildlife species that stop by or call our garden home. As a naturalist, dragonflies are my biggest passion and when not at home we are usually traveling Oregon to find and photograph as many species as possible. We wanted to enhance our own backyard habitat to encourage more Odonata visitors, so in July 2023, we worked with Eureka Falls again, this time to install a wildlife pond. :D

And… just a few weeks after it was finished, we watched Shadow Darners laying eggs in the new pond!

Before - we needed to relocate a Douglas Fir and several native plants

Pond outline

Once compete, we visited Hughes Water Gardens and purchased aquatic plants all native to the Willamette Valley ecoregion.

New Water Features

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Behold! Two new finished projects that make our certified backyard habitat even more amazing. Eureka Falls helped us out… they dug a trench and built a rocky river bed to help with water flow and runoff ahead of another rainy season. They also built an amazing cascading waterfall and left room for me to add native plants all around. After the work wrapped up, I spent a couple hours in the garden planting and cleaning up and the sound of the water was such a joy!

Backyard Certification

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We are so excited to announce that as of May 2021, we are officially a Certified Backyard Habitat by the Portland Audobon Society! 🥂 🐝🦉🌿

Our journey started a year prior with the consultation and a self-determined deep dive into pnw plant education. Since then we made substantial changes to our backyard space, removed the lawn, planted literally hundreds of natives, added sustainable habitats for pollinators and more. We are so proud of all the work we've accomplished, but more thrilled to add a safe space to this planet for the bees/birds/bugs/critters that share our slice of Oregon.

There are 3 levels of certification: Silver, Gold and Platinum. We achieved Gold for this certification, but our native areas are nearing the 50% needed for Platinum, so we're gonna keep at it and hope to recertify next year. Yay, Oregarden! You did it!

Our garden is working toward Platinum level certification, top-tier. Which means:

  1. Platinum Invasive Species: Remove all three levels of aggressive weeds

  2. Native Plants: Naturescape > 50% of property with locally native plants in all 5 vegetation layers

  3. Pesticide Reduction: No use of red or yellow zone chemicals, always use IPM strategy, take metro no pesticides pledge

  4. Wildlife Stewardship: i.e. cats kept inside or in outdoor enclosures 100% of time, wildlife water feature, bird/bat nest boxes, pollinator habitat, nurse logs, outdoor lights off during migration, native pollinator meadow

  5. Stormwater Management: i.e. large canopy tree over 30ft, remove impervious surfaces and/or grass more than 500ft, increase naturescaping to 10% higher than your certification level requirement, restore soils leave the leaves, eliminate lawn irrigation, adopt eco-friendly maintenance practices

  6. Education and Volunteerism

Vegetation Layers: 

    1. Ground layer

    2. Small/Medium shrub layer (<5ft)

    3. Large shrub layer (5-20ft)

    4. Understory tree canopy (<30ft)

    5. Overstory tree canopy (>30ft)

https://backyardhabitats.org/

"No Lawn" Remodel

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Grass is not green. In October 2020, we tore out all the lawn and worked with contractors to put in hardscape, including stone pathways, a circle of raised beds and a pad for my greenhouse. I had been thinking about a design for many months prior and had the idea of a donut of beds in the center of the lawn with irregular paths branching out. Our landscape designer loved the idea and produced some outstanding drawings for us.

Our intent is to fill the raised beds every year with an assortment of annuals, both veggies and flowers. And for all the land that isn’t a raised bed or hardscape to be covered in perennial native plants that will benefit the critters in our little slice of the northwest.