The Grow(in)’ On! Visioning Summit, held September 17-19, 2024, in Portland, Oregon, bridged agriculture and urban design, exploring ways to integrate farming within urban spaces. Hosted by the University of Oregon’s Institute for Health in the Built Environment, this summit convened experts to tackle sustainable building-integrated agriculture. Through workshops and discussions, participants gained insights into global practices, fostering collaboration aimed at reshaping food production in urban settings.
Each speaker not only brought a unique angle to the challenges and opportunities in building-integrated agriculture but also sparked actionable ideas for reshaping our urban landscapes to nourish both people and the environment. This summit reinforced the critical intersections of technology, sustainability, and community-driven innovation that we need to move forward.
One of the highlights of the Grow(in)’ On! Visioning Summit was the time spent in small action groups, where we organized around shared themes and goals. These self-formed groups fostered deeper connections and allowed us to dive into specific challenges in building-integrated agriculture. It was inspiring to see the diverse strategies we came up with and to know we’re collectively moving forward on these fronts. I’m excited to see the impact of our ongoing work and look forward to reconnecting and sharing our progress soon.
For more details about the summit and speakers, visit the event website.
We live in a world where we’re recognizing and discovering an ever-more complex and interwoven web of life—this vast ecology of our planet. We can see that life has taken many different routes to find success, and we call these paths ‘kingdoms’: animal, plant, fungui, protist, archaea, and bacteria. While we belong to and often focus on the first kingdom—that of animals—we are at what is only the beginning of discovery of the benefits we can reap from those in the last kingdom; we can harness the potential of bacteria to our good.
I want to tell you all about the bacterial genus Streptomyces. The genus is noted for the scent of their spores. You know that smell after a rain? That’s ‘petrichor’, ancient Greek for ‘rock’ and ‘ethereal blood of the gods.’ This smell is from a mix of compounds, but a significant contributor is geosmin, itself a by-product of the hydrophobic spores atop the aerial growth of this filamentous bacteria are launched from the earth with the force of raindrops striking the ground. The average human nose is incredibly sensitive to this chemical; we’re able to notice it as faintly as three parts-per-trillion—like a single drop in 40 Olympic swimming pools! Geosmin is also the reason we like the smell of freshly-dug earth, and it’s responsible if there’s a ‘muddy’ taste in your fish.
But there’s plenty more to love than just a pleasant smell. Most of its many, varied species are found living in soils the world over. They are commonly aerobic and produce exudates which resemble mycelium-like networks throughout the substrate in which they live. These exudates and the volatile organic compounds they off-gas are created in a category called secondary metabolites.
By Anne van der Meij, Joost Willemse, Martinus A. Schneijderberg, René Geurts, Jos M. Raaijmakers & Gilles P. van Wezel - [1]doi:10.1007/s10482-018-1014-z, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94443322
Living organisms create secondary metabolites as interactions with their environment. These compounds are not strictly required for survival. Sometimes called ‘relational’ or ‘ecological’ interactions, because it’s facilitating the meeting of the lifeform with the greater world. Contrast this to primary metabolites, which are required for growth, development, and reproduction.
How Streptomyces offers such tremendous potential
The great genetic variety it holds as the most populous genus in its phylum, with more than 700 species cataloged thus far. There are even species which rank among the longest genomic strands in all the bacterial kingdom: S. violaceoruber with 8.7 million base-pairs (Mbp) and S. scabiei at a whopping 10.1 Mbp.
Add to this the knowledge that Bacteria have more protein-coding genes from Eukaryotes, and that that gulf widens as genomes lengthen, and we find a very complex and active set of organisms.
A final point to the activity of the Streptomyces genome: it averages 12% of its protein-encoding genes dedicated to secondary metabolite production, a “high proportion” when compared to the rest of the kingdom (Nikolaidis et al., 2023). This all paints a picture of Streptomyces having a strong ability to affect the world around it.
Global focus on the genus
The discovery which launched Streptomyces into global focus was the creation of streptomycin, an antibiotic which helped treat tuberculosis. This compound was isolated from S. griseus in 1943 and won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952. Various extracts and synthetizations from this genus have focused on the antimicrobial properties and their application both for human health as well as pesticidal controls for use in agricultural production.
However, the global zeitgeist of our time is beginning to focus our attention inwards, to examine what we might do to change our bodies from within to better fit their environment without. Of notable interest is what’s been termed our ‘microbiome,’ all the various microscopic life inhabiting our very bodies. We’ve already scoured the genetic potential of Streptomyces for over 100,000 applications of reducing harmful microbial activity in humans and for agricultural chemicals (Alam et al., 2022). What if there is still more to be gained from this genus, and what if the methods might be different than laboratories and synthesized extracts?
Environmental interactions between microbes & humans
Exposure to different environments and inputs can change the various microbiomes in our bodies. We know the gut microbiome is tremendously affected by both temporary and long-term dietary options (Leeming et al., 2019).
Scientific experiments continue to investigate what effects various environmental exposures have on human health. In particular, investigations into affecting the microbiome on human skin are still ongoing. Our skin interacts with the world before and one behalf of all our other organs, and so might hold great potential for affecting reactions or purposeful changes to each of our skin’s microbiomes.
One recent study (Mhuireach et al., 2022) hypothesized that the hands of gardeners would be a likely place for soil-to-skin transfer of microbial populations. Complications, including hand-washing, confound the issue. But they did find Streptomyces among the top ten most abundant genera found in urban garden sample soils! The authors go on to emphasize the importance of soil/skin contact, citing Roslund et al. (2020) who found that biodiverse playgrounds improved children’s health and immune-function. Such findings reinforce efforts— at to get children outside and interacting with curated, natural play environments.
Further reading
Read more about this research on human health and garden soil contact, fresh from Oregon State University’s Garden Ecology Lab.
And now, you can carry on with your day knowing you’ve got about as much breadth of knowledge of Streptomyces as possible without beginning to delve into specific species. Thanks for reading!
We are entering the heart of summer, with blue skies, rising temperatures, blooming flowers, and growing gardens. As some of us are taking this time to relax in the bounty of our gardens and in whatever shade we can find, our pollinator counterparts are in the middle of their busiest season. The pollinators are out in full force, and it seems almost impossible to turn around in a garden without spotting a new butterfly, bee, or beetle. So for those among us who want to engage even further with the friends visiting our gardens around this time of year, we have the perfect game for you: Pollinator Bingo!
Our Pollinator Bingo-or should we say BEEngo- is a healthy mix between Bingo and a scavenger hunt!
Here’s how to play:
Select the Bingo Card you will use
Download it, or print it out, and get it ready to be filled out
Keep your eyes open for these visitors in a garden. When you spot a pollinator on your Bingo card, mark that pollinators square.
Once you fill an entire row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) you’ve won your BEEngo!
Extra Credit Challenge: Try to black out the entire card!
We hope you have fun playing Pollinator Bingo outside, exploring and enjoying the natural world in some way. Good luck BEEngo players!
Below, we included some pollinator spotlights, so you can get to know some of the species on your Bingo card a little better!
Pollinator Bingo Spotlight List:
Tribe Eucerini, Longhorned bee
Eucerini, also known as long-horned bees, are favorites among our lab members. They are the most diverse tribe in the family Apidae, with over 32 genera. These bees are solitary and ground-nesting. What makes them distinct and a lab favorite are the long antennae the males are known for and from which they get their common name. The females are also recognizable, as they have long hairs, known as scopae, on their hind legs, giving them the appearance of wearing very thick pants.
Photo by Svea Bruslind
2. Species Papilio machaon oregonia, Oregon Swallowtail butterfly
As with any in the Swallowtail family, Papilio machaon oregonia, or the Oregon Swallowtail, is big, beautiful, and eye-catching. It was officially named Oregon’s state insect on July 16, 1979. It is native to the northwest and is only found in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and sections of British Columbia. For the purposes of Pollinator Bingo, any Swallowtail will count for its space. Keep an eye out for the Oregon Swallowtail and others, and see how many different species you can find!
Photo by Cara Still
3. Family Syrphidae, Flower Fly
Hoverflies, flower flies, and syrphid flies are all different names for the flies within the family Syrphidae. Syrphid flies come in a wide variety of sizes and colors, with some that resemble wasps and others that look nearly identical to bees. Most syrphids, however, can be found with some kind of striping on their abdomen. Syrphids are essential to any garden as they help with pest control and pollination. Some people are surprised that flies are pollinators too, but hopefully, this list can illustrate the wide variety of pollinators out there!
Photo by Devon Johnson
4. Species Trichodes ornatus, Ornate Checkered beetle
Trichodes ornatus, or the Ornate Checkered beetle, is an interesting species, as during the early stages of its life, instead of pollinating, it feeds on pollinators. These beetles will lay their eggs on plants such as yarrow, sagebrush, and asters. When these eggs hatch, the larvae attach themselves to a visiting bee, usually a leafcutter bee. They will then be transported to the bee’s nest, where they will eat the provisions left there for the host larvae before eating the host larvae and burrowing into nearby cells to do the same. As an adult, the Ornate Checkered beetle will feed on pollen but will not miss an opportunity to snack on other visiting pollinators when foraging for pollen.
Calypte Anna or Anna’s hummingbird should be a familiar sight for many of us. This rambunctious bird is a permanent resident along the Pacific Coast, staying year-round through winters instead of engaging in migration as other species of hummingbirds are known to do. Males of Anna’s hummingbird are pretty talkative, often vocalizing with a buzzy song. The males have a brilliant red head with a green body, and the females have similar green plumage, but without the red coloration on their face and neck.
My name is Devon Johnson, and I am a senior undergraduate crawling ever so gradually towards a degree in Biology with an option in Ecology. I’ve lived in a few different places, but my love of natural sciences bloomed in Oregon. I recently joined the bee team to help at Oak Creek as a field and lab tech. This is my first research related job and I have quickly learned a host of bee and plant knowledge I never knew I wanted!
I volunteer at Chintimini Wildlife Center every Thursday, where I get to see wildlife get nursed to health. We mainly get birds, so I love hearing the quirky calls and chirps, and most importantly, see the personalities of each patient. The experience has wholly made me a bird fan, and I love learning and talking about them. (Bird facts are the best!).
A cattle egret I shot and identified with iNaturalist (what an amazing website!)
I took a biodiversity class one year, which solidified my dream to get involved in conservation biology. I’ve learned about wonderful conservation projects, such as the Y2Y (Yellowstone to Yukon) project, that inspire me to continue my studies to grasp as much as I can about the wonderful world we live in. Biology is so entrancing, and as I absorb information about fungi this summer through a class I realize that I am right at home within it.
After trying to catch dragonflies in nets with the team (it went disastrously), I was determined to at least get a good shot of one.
While I will continue to become more knowledgeable about pollinators, data collection, and native plants this summer, my current favorite fact that I didn’t know about the bee family Apidae (bumblebees, honey bees) is that they keep the pollen they are collecting in a “pollen basket” called corbicula, or corbiculae for plural.
Let me say it again- pollen… basket.
If you don’t love bees now then I can’t help you.
I appreciate everything that the Oak Creek Team has taught me so far, the team has been so welcoming, and am glad to be here!
I’m sure many are familiar with the long treks that many pollinators make when winter begins to roll around. Monarch butterflies will travel thousands of miles to reach their final destination. Rufous hummingbirds will spend August swooping and diving in your backyards before moving Southward as September slowly drizzles it’s way into October. But not every pollinator decides to seek warmer climes as the temperature drops. Many opt to hunker down and wait out the cold weather, seeking shelter in any manner of burrow all around your gardens. This post is focused on several things that you, as caretakers of your gardens and friends of pollinators, can do to watch out for your hard working friends.
One of the most important things you can do to help overwintering pollinators is by doing nothing at all. By leaving the ground cover of leaves, sticks, and plant material you are also leaving the material that many pollinators use to make nests. Many pollinators will snuggle down into this protective layer, and be safe and sound during the colder months. By not raking up the leaves deposited by shedding trees, you are helping pollinators have a safer and more comfortable winter. If a little clean up is necessary, try not to completely remove the leaves or plant material, but instead, rake it onto beds or around shrubs so that it stays as part of the environment. Along with protecting pollinators, leaving this cover can help retain soil moisture, prevent weeds, return nutrients to the soil, and reduce waste entering landfills. So if and when possible, consider leaving the leaves.
Pale Swallowtails overwinter in Central Oregon during the chrysalis stage of life. Photo: Steve Pedersen.
Postpone pulling up dead stems, or moving old bark
Many pollinators will use dead stems or old bark as protection from the elements while they are overwintering. If possible, postpone pulling dead steams, or throwing out old branches, sticks or bark. Cavity dwelling pollinators will often seek shelter inside wood piles, old logs, or dead flower stalks. Several types of chrysalis’s have patterns similar to wood to blend into the environment while the pupa inside waits for spring. Butterflies that do not migrate will spend winter in varying life stages, some as eggs, some as caterpillars, some as a chrysalis, and some as adults. Therefore, it is best to leave as many forms of shelter as possible. Keep your eye on any bamboo posts in your garden, as many different types of bees will use these as bunkers during the cold. Be careful when moving or uprooting, and keep an eye out for pollinators hiding in crevices, cracks or crannies.
Photo by Kyle Blaney
Leave your hummingbird feeder up
There are many different opinions on this advice. Many people will say that leaving your hummingbird feeder up during the winter will deter the hummingbirds from migrating. However, there is no easily found evidence that supports this. The Audubon Organization indicates that you can leave up your feeder for as long as you have hummingbirds, and having a feeder up as winter rolls around will not keep hummingbirds from migrating. Hummingbirds migrate due to genetics and other factors, not necessarily due to availability of food. However, not all hummingbirds migrate. Anna’s hummingbird, which can be found across the Northwest, Oregon included, is nonmigratory, and might be extra appreciative of feeders that are left up during the colder months. Adding extra sugar to keep the hummingbird food from freezing is not recommended, however, as this can dehydrate the birds. Keep the ratio of 1:4 parts sugar to water. Instead, to try and prevent freezing, you can take the feeder inside at night; hummingbirds don’t feed at night. You can also hang an incandescent bulb near the feeder, as this can generate enough heat to keep the feeder thawed.
While the three listed above are only a few steps to be taken to help overwintering pollinators, a little help can go a long way for our essential pollinator companions. They, like any of us, just want to stay warm and fed during the cold months, and I’m sure would greatly appreciate any help from you in helping them stay that way.
Flowers and bees have one of the most well-known symbiotic relationships ever formed. Flowers rely on bees for pollination, and bees rely on flowers for nectar and pollen. It is generally understood that flowers act as advertisements to attract bees. However, less is known about what exactly bees are seeing and how that can change once humans get involved. This project is focused on the changes that can arise after a plant is cultivated, and how these changes can affect pollinator preference of a flower.
While changes made by breeders might not seem all that drastic to our eyes, we have little idea if that is the case for bees. Often breeders will change flowers for aesthetic purposes. This can have unknown consequences. These changes might not seem like such a big issue since the flowers are still colorful. However, bee vision is very different from humans, with bees having the ability to see into the UV spectrum. This means that while we might think we are only changing the bloom size or the color, we could also be unintentionally changing UV messaging visible only to the bees.
The purpose of this study is to use UV photography to explore these invisible differences between the native and cultivar. We also want to determine if the differences have a tangible impact on pollinator preference. This study is ongoing, but the images so far have shown a few native/cultivar sets that have a marked difference in UV markers between native and cultivars. While the study has only just started, our excitement and curiosity have not abated. This is an entirely new foray into pollinator relationships and mechanisms and could open up the world of bees and flowers in a brand new way.
An example of a UV photo of a nemophila flower, with a UV marking in the center, highlighted in blue
My name is Mallory Mead, and I am new to the Garden Ecology Lab! I am an undergrad studying Horticulture and minoring in Entomology, and I started a few weeks ago as an assistant to Jen Hayes on her study of pollinator attraction to native plants and nativars.
I enrolled in Oregon State’s URSA Engage program, which gives undergrads a taste of research experience in the Winter and Spring of their first year, and joined a project studying how mason bees might be impacted by climate change with Dr. Jim Rivers of the department of Forest Ecosystems and Society. The study seeks to examine the effects of warming temperatures on mason bee behavior and the development of brood.
The Western US’s native species of mason bee, the Blue Orchard Bee (BOB) is known to be an excellent orchard pollinator. On many orchard crops they are more efficient at pollination than honey bees on a per individual basis, and so the commercial management of BOBs is being explored as honey bee colonies suffer management challenges and colony losses in recent years.
Mason bees have a short lifespan of 4 to 6 weeks. Emerging in the early spring, males die shortly after mating, while females build nests in holes in wood or reeds. They forage for pollen and nectar to form provision masses in which they lay their eggs. They also collect mud to form partitions between each provision mass and to cap the nest once it is full. Their offspring will feed on the provisions and metamorphose into cocooned adults to overwinter in their cells and emerge the following spring.
To ensure the bees had ample nutrient resources, the project was conducted next to the organic cherry orchard at OSU’s Lewis Brown Farm. Before the cherries bloomed, 6 nest structures were designed and constructed by Jim, Ron Spendal (a mason bee house conisuerrier) and Aaron Moore of Revolution Robotics.
Nest structures, solar panels, and camcorders at Lewis Brown Farm.
Each structure has 3 shelves with 16 nest holes each, lined with paper straws so that the nests can be easily removed and examined. The structures are solar powered, and each shelf is heated to a different increment above the ambient temperature i.e. + 0°C , + 2°C, + 4°C, + 6°C, + 8°C, + 10 °C, and + 12°C. These differentials represent many potential warming outcomes of climate change.
Nest Structure Number 2 with labelled component parts. A. The Electronics control box. B. Cocoon-release box. C. Shelves sandwiched by heating pads, and lined with paper nesting straws
Our Hypotheses
We predicted that female mason bees will select the warmer nests first, and that females will leave nests earlier in the morning to begin foraging because they will reach the critical internal temperature necessary for flight sooner.
If heated bees have a greater window of foraging time, then we predict they’ll be able to construct nests at a faster rate in the warmer nests.
With greater nest construction will come a greater production of offspring from the bees in the warmed nests.
But…
In terms of offspring quality, we predict that offspring of heated nests will emerge as weak individuals and mortality will be the highest for the heated brood.
…and we are pretty confident about this last prediction.
Insects are poikilothermic meaning their internal temperatures are determined by the environment. Past studies by researchers Bosch and Kemp have reported that mason bees who are overwintered at warm temperatures will “use up their metabolic reserves and are likely to die during the winter”. And a more recent study by researchers at the University of Arizona found that mason bees subjected to heating resulted in reduced body mass, fat content and high mortality of the mason bee offspring.
Data Collection
One of the latest male mason bees to emerge, surrounded by empty cocoons in the release box.
Our mason bees started hatching from cocoons in mid-April and began to colonize the nest structures. I captured video footage of the bees as they emerged in the morning to forage. If bees from heated nest sites emerge earlier, this will support our hypotheses that they reach their critical-for-flight temperature earlier, and get a leg-up on foraging compared to their neighbors.
I also conducted “nest checks” to track the rate of nest construction along with two other research assistants.
In the fall, the nest tubes will be extracted to examine the reproductive output, and in the following spring, offspring will be assessed for rates of mortality, offspring mass, and fat content.
Obstacles
Some of the challenges along the way have included dealing with insect pests. Spiders were easygoing inhabitants of the nest straws, for they only nested in empty straws, so we’d swap them out for a clean one. The earwigs were much more pervasive, and went for the already inhabited nests. As generalist foragers, the earwigs took advantage of provision balls of nectar and pollen that had not yet been sealed off by mud. Once I read that earwigs will indeed eat the mason bee eggs that are laid into the provision masses, I knew it was crucial to remove the earwigs from all nests, but these feisty creatures proved determined to stay. We ordered some tanglefoot, a sticky substance to trap the earwigs on their way up the structure post, and meanwhile I coaxed earwigs out with tiny pieces of grass. Jabbing them repeatedly would eventually provoke them to charge at the blade of grass and fall out from the straw.
Yellowjackets were another opportunistic nester. They’d sneak into the cocoon boxes to build nests, and always gave me a start when opening the tiny boxes. I removed their nests with an extended grabber tool and would destroy them in any way I could. I feel immensely lucky not to have been stung through this process.
The most terrifying surprise during the project was a fat snake that was living in the solar panel battery box. It popped out at me hissing while I conducted a routine check. Alas, I was too spooked to take on this unexpected visitor and let it leave on its own time.
Preliminary Findings & Observations
By mid-May, a pretty clear pattern was emerging. At each structure, the control shelf’s nests (+ 0 °C) were full and capped with mud, while the hottest shelves were almost completely empty. We will analyze nest check data to confirm that these patterns are not just arising by chance, but a study that was released this past April showed another species of mason bee in Poland following the same pattern of nest site preference and selection for cooler nest sites.
The mason bees’ unexpected behavior of avoiding the heated chambers may lead to trouble during the second part of the experiment because this means our sample size for heated offspring has become so tiny, but here it is important to note that this is mason bee project is a pilot study and so the data collected this year will simply influence more specific future research.
these preliminary findings make me think that mason bees have an ingrained sense to avoid warm nests, which might show mason bees’ adaptability in the face of climate change, that is, if they can manage to continue finding cool nests. People managing mason bees find that nests facing the morning sun are the most attractive to the bees, but I wonder how long it will be before temperatures rise and mason bees start avoiding these sunny nests.
Moving Forward
By the end of May, I’d only see a few the mason bees per visit, so the season was clearly coming to an end. I wrapped up data collection and am now spending the summer extracting data from the video footage, and checking up on the bees to ensure they are safe and sound until Fall inspections.
I am wishing the best to both the wild bees in our region and those in our study, as the temperatures skyrocket this week but with this summer’s heat wave, I don’t think we need to simulate climate change; it is right here before us. Even though it is practically inevitable that temperatures will rise to dangerous heights in my generation’s lifetime, there is so much life to be saved, and there is no time to waste.
“Blue Orchard Bee, Osmia lignaria” by SeabrookeLeckie.com is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0″
Oudolf-designed garden at Pensthorpe, Fakenham, UK. https://www.fiveseasonsmovie.com/gallery/
As part of Master Gardener Week at the end of October, I had the opportunity to view “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf” and participate in a discussion afterwards. This recently-released film has brought renewed attention to the gardens and landscapes created by this internationally-renowned designer. His popular public garden designs, and several books, have had a profound impact on the design of public spaces, as well as private gardens.
Oudolf’s gardens have been described as spontaneous, immersive and naturalistic, and rely heavily on grasses and structural perennials to maintain visual interest well into the winter. They evoke flower-filled meadows and prairies, and seem at first glance like places that could, indeed, have occurred spontaneously. Oudolf himself acknowledges, though, that they require a certain amount of “interference”, and his design process is comprehensive and very specific. He has a palette of plants that he has tested over time for durability and effect.
During the bloom season, one imagines these gardens will be buzzing with pollinators, and be places of lively, hungry activity. When it comes to pollinators, it seems, almost any garden is better than no garden at all, and a garden doesn’t need to be designed especially for pollinators in order to offer benefits to them. As research in this lab has shown, though, a garden designed specifically to be pollinator friendly has an outsized impact.
So I wondered, how pollinator-friendly are Oudolf’s naturalistic gardens, really? On the positive side: • Lots of flowers. From early season to late, things are blooming. Plants are left standing well into winter, providing seed and shelter. • Little or no use of pesticides. • Native plants are often included, though there is no particular emphasis on them.
On the negative side: • Maintenance involves cutting everything to the ground in late winter. This destroys the winter homes of cavity-nesting bees that use the stems. At the Lurie garden in Chicago, this problem was recognized and steps were taken to leave some stems standing. • Lack of layering. The iconic Oudolf garden is composed almost entirely of herbaceous perennials, with trees and large shrubs lacking. This limits the provision of food and habitat for a variety of creatures.
I believe pollinators could be better supported by Oudolf-style gardens with three simple changes. • Keep mowed areas to a minimum. Group plants with good winter nesting stems, and leave them standing until they are covered by new growth. • Include and group small groups of larger plants such as suitable small trees and shrubs. • Prioritize native plants where possible.
Lurie Garden with selected areas left standing for pollinators. https://www.luriegarden.org/2019/03/15/cutting-back-on-the-cut-back/
If you would like to know more about Piet Oudolf’s gardens, plant choices, and design process, here are some reference materials. And if you get the chance, watch the film “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf”.
Dream Plants for the Natural Garden by Henk Gerritsen and Piet Oudolf, Timber Press 2000 Essentially a catalog (although not all plants are pictured) of plants that Oudolf has culled to be “reliable plants that, over the years, can be maintained in an average garden without too much in the way of artificial props and bolstering”. Many of them “look good dead”, too. These are the plants he uses in his designs. They are divided into categories of Tough Perennials (the longest section by far), Playful Biennials and Annuals, Troublesome Invasive Plants, and Troublesome Capricious Plants – hardly the usual categories! If you are an experienced gardener and want an invaluable reference for plants that will enhance your natural garden without requiring loads of work, this book is for you.
Planting Design: Gardens in Time and Space by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury, Timber Press 2005 On the other hand, if you are not an experienced gardener, this book might be a better place to start. It is a thrifty introduction to the concepts of how gardens fit into nature, and vice versa, and how plants can be used through space – and time! – to create the desired outcomes. There are many lists of plants for specific purposes, such as Small Trees to combine with perennials, and Biennials for self-sowing, and a short but useful section on how to prepare for, implement, and maintain a planting of this sort.
Planting: A New Perspective by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury, Timber Press 2013 This book builds on the previous two, offering a detailed look at the techniques and philosophy Oudolf uses to design his gardens, as well as specific ways in which he uses plants in them. A season-by-season guide dissects various effects and combinations, and a chart towards the end concisely organizes many of the plants used. One of the most interesting concepts is that of matrix planting.
Several of Piet Oudolf’s books
For more detail on the creation of specific gardens by Piet Oudolf, there are also books on Hummelo, the High Line, and Durslade Farm.
The Self-Sustaining Garden by Peter Thompson, Timber Press 2007 In this book matrix planting is presented in great detail. This is an effective and efficient way of designing intermingled plantings without having to specify the location of each and every plant. The matrix (often grasses) may be made up of several plant species, and serves as a stage for other, showier compatible plants embedded in it.
Dramatic Effects with Architectural Plants by Noel Kingsbury, Overlook Press, 1997 Oudolf’s chief writing partner has produced many noteworthy books himself. As the title describes, this book focuses on plants with strong and dramatic architecture. Having some of these in the mix is a key technique that makes Oudolf’s designs work.
Naturalistic Planting Design by Nigel Dunnett, filbert press 2019 With a foreword by, who else, Piet Oudolf, this is one of the most recent entries in the category of books focusing on natural or naturalistic design. It’s a dense book with at least as much text as photography, covering garden lore from historic, through contemporary, and looking to the future. Basic design principles, as they pertain to a naturalistic design, are also presented, along with a series of case studies illustrated by seasonal photos. Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest by Arthur Kruckeberg and Linda Chalker-Scott, University of Washington Press, 2019. And finally, if you want to use PNW native plants to achieve Oudolf-like effects in your garden, this recent book is an accessible, thorough, well-illustrated guide to those plants. You will find it easy to browse through for plants that have the look you want. Symbols by each photo give a hint as to each plant’s cultural requirements.
#SpaceFlower, a zinnia grown on the International Space Station (ISS). Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Read this article to learn:
The diversity of crops grown in space
First food crop grown in space (onion)
What ‘lightsicles’ are
NASA and air purification
Space Seeds™
The primary problem facing astroculture
(irrigation) and why (microgravity)
First space-grown vegetable eaten in space (lettuce)
Expansion of production area in astrocultural
trials (1000x increase)
Why astroculture?
Astroculture: growing food in space! ‘Sure, cool concept,’
you might be thinking, ‘but what does this have to do with garden ecology?’
Well, the tight confines onboard spacecraft are more constraining than most any
compact, dense city on Earth could claim. Perhaps only those in capsule-style
housing can begin to appreciate the cramped living quarters of astronauts.
The effort to grow food in space is about more than creating
a system which can reduce the need for supply shuttles from Earth. Astroculture
is the proving ground for compact, synthetic production environments. Any experiments
are as isolated as possible. This has resulted in NASA (or the National
Aeronautics Space Administration) and other space agencies playing a central
role in the development of new technologies to support the growth of plants in
artificial conditions.
From 1970 to the present there have been:
21 plant growth chamber design systems
50 different cultivation experiments
across ~40 species
The first food crop grown in space were onions in July, 1975,
by cosmonauts Klimuk and Sevastianov during the Salyut space program of the Soviet Union. They aimed a few bulbs
from the crew’s on-board lighting system at the seeded trays, but nothing more.
Some plants did germinate, and for the first plants humans have put in space,
that’s a significant enough accomplishment on its own. One of the limitations
to this and all the other experiments at this time were the short flight
durations. Only two years previous, the record time in space was set at just
eight weeks—by the United States.
NASA pioneered research into intra-canopy lighting with a
technique they called ‘lightsicles’—poles of lights which lit ever-higher as
the plants grew taller. This idea itself isn’t new. Experiments ‘on the ground’
had shown that shading out lower leaves will lead to senescence or the decay
and loss of those leaves.
See, the problem wasn’t in supplying the right spectrum of
light—controlled conditions in space quickly produced plants with lush growth
in their upper canopy. The problem they quickly realized was a shading out and
subsequent decay and loss of leaves below the plant canopy. Lights like
high-pressure sodium or metal halide were simply too hot to be placed within
the plant canopy itself. This heat also meant there was significant distance
between light source and plant. This empty space between light and plant was
the most the aeronautic agencies were willing to sacrifice to carry out these
agricultural experiments. They definitely were not going to now account for
empty space between lights on multiple sides of a plant’s growing area!
The scientists at NASA were ready and waiting for something
better. They quickly embraced emerging technologies like LEDs for all the same
reasons Earth-bound producers have: they’re energetically efficient with little
waste heat all in a compact design. This lighting design and strict need for
density meant NASA also found itself on the frontier of vertical farming
innovations.
Experiments in astroculture, of growing plants in space, mostly
boil down to understanding plant function in microgravity. Be this on a
shuttle, station, Luna, or Mars, all locations exert less gravitational force
than the Earth.
Steve Swanson tending Romaine lettuce aboard the ISS. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
In 1982 Arabidopsis was successfully grown seed-to-seed in
space then germinated back on Earth. This was proof of concept, plant life off-planet
was possible. But the success rate was only about half, and all with a simple,
model plant. This is like sending mice into space before chimps or humans. Subsequent
experiments of greater scope found microgravity seriously impedes and sometimes
even alters plant physiology.
Now, let’s talk about carbon dioxide for a second. Plants
breathe the air, just like us, but they’ve got a use for CO2: it
plays a key role in photosynthesis. Atmospheric enrichment of CO2 within
closed production environments has been practiced since the 1970s. A limited
set of experiments in 1989 found CO2 supplementation also improved a
great number of factors in microgravity. But this might not be so
groundbreaking or critical to astroculture. This is still well before the
current field of controlled environment agriculture had developed. We now see
carbon dioxide as key to increasing plant growth but also recognize a number of
other inherently limiting factors within artificial environments. Put shortly:
most plants, on terrafirma or in outer space, do better with
CO2 supplementation.
What has emerged as uniquely problematic in microgravity is
irrigation. Maintaining a reliable range of moisture in the root zone has
become the critical adaptation of astrocultural production. I’m sure we’re all
familiar with water adhesion and its surface tension. On the planet’s surface,
adhesion and tension are frequently dwarfed by the force of gravity itself.
This pulls water into the soil, pulls water through the soil, and actually
plays a large part in the water cycle itself. In microgravity, adhesion and
tension begin to exert their dominance. It’s difficult to direct and instead
will cling to most surfaces it touches. So when water is applied to the root
zone, it clings to the roots. Many plants end up anoxic: they’ve drowned in
their flooded conditions.
The latest developments are using porous tubes and/or plates
to slow the delivery of water and nutrients. It seems like, if we can’t stop
water from coating everything it touches, the plan is to greatly restrict its
flow and access to non-target areas. A slow osmosis via a clay pipe works as a
bottleneck to prevent drowning.
In the early 2000s on board the International Space Station,
astronauts successfully completed two generations–that’s seed-to-seed,-to-seed—of
soy: Space Seeds™. Ok, they’re not really trademarked, but it’s fun to call
them ‘space seeds.’
Astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren eating the first leaves of space-grown lettuce. Image courtesy of NASA Johnson on flickr.
On August 10, 2015, NASA astronauts were officially allowed to eat space-grown produce for the first time: some leaves of lettuce.
In addition to innovative irrigation control techniques, the
latest astrocultural experiments have just recently begun to increase in scale.
The first growing
area, in 1971, was a mere 10cm2. Little gains were made until 2014 when
they achieved 1700cm2 of production area by using an ‘inflatable’
model which astronauts assembled once in outer space. The latest plans utilize
a vertical racking system and aim for a full square meter (10,000 cm2).
Well, that’s a lengthy enough primer on growing plants in space. There’s plenty more to be told and a wealth of discoveries yet to be made. If you’re interested in some further reading, perhaps try some of these options.
As an ecologist who studies garden systems, the increasing use of native plants in urban and suburban landscaping is exciting to me (see lab member Signe Danler’s great blog post on “ecological gardening”). Unfortunately, there are still many challenges associated with growing the adoption of native plants by home gardeners, with the largest barrier simply being the lack of availability of these species. I have noticed this barrier when giving talks to the public – many home gardeners are interested in gardening with high-ecological value native plants, but don’t know where to purchase them. These anecdotal observations are backed up by peer-reviewed literature, as several studies that have investigated the use of native plants in urban landscapes identified availability as one of the major barriers to adoption.
So, if you are a gardener in Oregon interested in gardening with native plants, where do you start? The good news is that native plants are available! Most big box stores (like Home Depot) have few to no native plants. One option is to go to a large, diverse nursery, like Portland Nursery or Garland Nursery in Corvallis. Besides perusing the selection of native plants they do stock, you can always ask them if they are able to stock a native plant you are interested in. These nurseries generally have contacts with a variety of growers, and demonstrating demand for native plants may lead to nurseries stocking more of these species on the shelf.
But what if you don’t have a specific native plant in mind, or what if you are new to the native plant world? Your best bet is to go to a specialty native plant nursery. Luckily, in Oregon there are a variety of native plant growers throughout the state. Below is a (non-comprehensive) list of some of the retail options. Keep in mind that some of these nurseries grow/stock a wide variety of species, while others specialize in plants of a certain region of the state or in a certain type of plant (think trees, or shrubs). I did not include nurseries that are primarily wholesale operations.
You can find more information on the Oregon Flora Project’s website, where they have a tool that lists Oregon native plant nurseries, as well as a list of what each grower stocks.
Finally, another great source of native plants are native plant sales! Many Master Gardener chapters and many soil and water conservation districts put on native plant sales in the spring. Here are a few, but check with these organizations in your county and see if they have sales scheduled!
