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Announcement
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Landscaping With Plants Native to Idaho
Idaho Landscapes Going Back to Their Roots
http://www.idahostatesman.com 10/22/07
- The Associated Press
Scientists from the University of Idaho and private companies are touting plants native to Idaho as one solution to the state's increasing water woes following another year of drought.
Emerald-green lawns might be perfect for rainy places like Seattle or Ireland.
In southern Idaho, however, laying down a bed of sagebrush, lupine, penstamine and buckwheat can create landscapes that suck up less water - and restore a link between increasingly developed areas and the region's high desert environment, University of Idaho horticulturist Stephen Love said.
This year, the state narrowly averted shutting down hundreds of Magic Valley wells, including wells serving cities such as Shoshone, after a last-minute agreement was struck to meet the demands of two trout farms for more water. In addition, the Nampa Meridian Irrigation District had to turn its water off a month earlier than usual and the Boise Project districts shut off water about a week early because of low water.
Starting in 2005, Love and his staff fanned out into Idaho's Owyhee and Pioneer mountains, as well as the mountains surrounding Hells Canyon, looking for seeds of globe mallows, clematis and other hardy native plants.
Around 400 native species now grow on 2.5 acres at the UI's Aberdeen Research and Extension Center, where Love works.
"We're bringing them into domestication, out of the wild," Love told the Idaho Statesman. "We saw that the state was changing from rural to urban, with people more removed from agriculture. Native plants represent an emerging marketplace."
Idaho is the third fastest-growing state, after Arizona and Nevada.
The population growth is mirrored in the number of new subdivisions springing up. Some developers of these sprawling residential communities that are encroaching ever farther into Idaho's vast sagebrush plain say they're taking heed of projected future water shortages by planting native vegetation.
For instance, workers from Emmett, Idaho-based Native & Xeric Plants, which grows native Idaho plants from seeds, are replanting hills in the new Avimor Subdivision off State Highway 55 between Eagle and Horseshoe Bend. The company hopes to plant tens of thousands of seedlings by the end of November.
Water conservation isn't the only benefit. Native plants also can help impede the advance of highly flammable invasive plants like cheatgrass that have been blamed for large wildfires such as the Murphy Complex blaze on the Idaho-Nevada border in July.
Stew Churchwell, owner of Native & Xeric Plants, said learning to grow wild plants sometimes takes the patient touch of an artist. Some seeds need acid baths to break their seed coats; Indian rice grass requires him to make a little box, put sandpaper on the bottom and then rub the grass seeds on the sandpaper to break their coats.
"We try to think like a native," Churchwell said. "Some plants, like lupine, could be viable for 30 years. Some willow seeds are viable for a matter of hours. You just have to learn the plants."
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