I see it when I go for walks in my neighborhood.
I see it when I drive to the grocery store.
And, although the Epping garden, which I visited while on Garden Bloggers' Fling this past weekend, had many interesting, beautiful and exotic plants, the Ocean spray that ringed the garden in all the wild places beyond the edge of the cultivated areas was the very first thing I noticed.
Ocean spray is one of those plants that is the first to reclaim devastated areas after a burn or forest clear-cut (along with Fireweed, another PNW native flower). It is often found as an understory shrub to large stands of Douglas fir. The flowers have a faint scent and age to a chocolate brown.
The shrub grows throughout the Northwest and western parts of North America, from British Columbia to California and Arizona. It's a member of the rose family. The flowers attract swallowtail, azure, and Lorquin's admiral butterflies. It can be propagated from semi-hardwood cuttings, suckers and seeds and grows in either sun or part shade in moist but lean soil.
Native Americans used it in many ways -- the leaves, berries and flowers as medicine, the wood and bark for tools, furniture and weapons.
I have two specimens of this shrub growing in my newly established back garden. But the garden is too new and the plants too young to flower yet. Maybe next year.
Please check out Wildflower Wednesday, which is hosted by Gail of clay and limestone.
