mid May, 2024
Pacific Northwest
Roses grow wild and prolifically in the Pacific Northwest islands. We have thickets anywhere they are allowed, including roadsides and hedgerows. In fact unless you constantly cut them back, they’ll take over your backyard and driveway, coming up from vigorous underground runners. I don’t go barefoot in my yard; too many years of thorns getting embedded and infected.
But at this season, the roses are coming into full bloom and we’ll have a month of glorious fragrance filling the air everywhere. It’s especially strong after a rainfall, which we had a couple days ago.
There’s an orange fungus that infects some branches but it doesn’t really slow them down
Most of our wild roses are the Nootka rose, which does well in open sunny areas. We also have Baldhip roses growing in shadier woodsy sites. They have a less bushy habit and more delicate flowers but are equally if not more thorny.
Other flowers blooming at rose season:
Pacific crabapple trees are a preferred target for tent caterpillars, along with alders, willows and roses. This is a big tent cat season but not apocalyptic like last year. This tree will do fine. I see a bee pollinating its flowers in this photo. ROSACEAE Malus fusca
These are all native local wildflowers. The links (except for the tree) are to Mark Turner’s Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest.
Regarding our big rainfall event on the 21st, we got over an inch, which is a lot for us — our average annual precipitation is about 24”. However we’re currently still below normal — about 85% — for the water year (October-September). November, typically our wettest month, was unusually dry and March, April, and the first half of May were way below normal. Wetlands and ponds are already drying up. Thankfully this one-day rainfall helped dampen the soil at least. And it added a foot of water to my rainwater catchment tanks. Here’s my CoCoRaHS data in graphical form as of today. In the lower graph the black line is the historical average, the blue line is my precipitation this water year.
Dry for the year, heading into the dry season.
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Back here at home in the Pacific Northwest islands, temps are in the 50s with light breeze today.
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WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY?
P.S. Today is my anniversary (18 years). The zillions of wild roses in bloom are the best bouquet Mr O and I could ever have.