The New Old Garden

June 5, 2017

Like knitting, beyond exotic species and new hybrids, there probably really isn’t anything completely new in gardening, only things to rediscover—AKA new-old topics. These new-old topics include lawns of mixed species, or lawn replacements, and layered green garden beds where no soil shows. 

Coastal dune prairie, with western buttercup and
early blue violets--the turf that jump-started
my new old lawn. 

Into the nineteenth and early twentieth century, lawns were closely mown or grazed turf, composed of a mix of species, including grasses, wildflowers, bulbs and sedges. In other words, any plant that could tolerate close grazing or mowing might be found growing in a turf, or low meadow. This treatment kept out or down most woody species. 

Grass-only turfs were the purview of the wealthy, who hired people to mow and weed lawns and remove the non-grass plants, often by hand. The tyranny of the grass lawn began after World War II with a shift by chemical manufacturers from wartime gases to fertilizers and pesticides. This meant that anyone could have a lush grass-only lawn, just by applying the right synthetic chemicals at the right time. 

The ‘new-old lawn’ is a mix of species of grasses and wildflowers, designed on prairie palettes of low to tall wildflowers with a grass framework. Mowing is hugely reduced. Pesticides are not used, except perhaps to remove historic exotic grasses. 

Sand-dune sedge in a bare spot

Never a fan of summer watering, lots of chemicals (including fertilizers), or excessive weeding, I began pondering the turf tyranny a few years ago. A series of dry summers meant that the grasses regularly died back over large areas of my turf. Several exotic daisies promptly made a bid for dominance, including hairy catsear, common hawkbit, dandelion and leontodon. English daisy, Viola labradorica, creeping buttercup, trailplant, strawberry and others also expanded. 

In the midst of the profusion of flowers, I found some areas of turf were still green and thriving—these were patches of sand dune sedge, Carex pansa. Dry summers did not bother them at all. Thus began my rethinking of what constitutes a lawn. I began transplanting sedge clumps into bare areas. When I weeded, I removed only the largest exotic daisies, which are nurseries for several exotic European slugs that eat many garden plants. I left the rest, including mosses, ribwort, English daisy, violet, gill-over-the-ground, and dandelion, to grow and seed around. 

Coast goldenrod, another lovely low flower for
low meadows, and a good nectar plant.

We reduced mowing from weekly to every few weeks, leaving low mown strips along flower beds and letting the lawn grow taller elsewhere. I added sea thrift. This year I began pondering bulbs, which would need to be left to grow until foliage died down. I pulled out a hedge of lilacs along the marsh to replace with tall native grasses and wildflowers—to make a belt of meadow plants that can be mown at most once a year, to keep out woody species—and will otherwise be left alone. 

There are plants I intend to exclude. Ivy, Scots broom, gorse, and several exotic blackberries grow here. If areas are never mown, these species soon run riot over everything else. When we moved to this house, most of the property was a thicket of the aforementioned species, plus wild rose, grape, honeysuckle and plum. It took us years to clear the lower slopes of the dune behind the house so we could walk completely around the house outside.

It’s a work in transition. Eventually I will have three areas that are occasionally to regularly mown, high to low. There will be more native plants, more flowers, and more habitat for insects and animals that use meadows. I already see more butterflies and bumblebees than in the past. 

Sisyrinchiums are tiny irids that do well in lawns,
just don't mow them when they are flowering.

Garden beds are undergoing the same transformation from meticulously weeded and mulched, planted with carefully grouped species, to a ‘new green garden’ with a ground cover of low growing greenery, with no bare ground at all. It’s new to early 21st century gardeners, but was the normal garden condition for centuries, beyond areas where food plants and medicinal herbs were grown.  

Fringe-cups like some shade and moist soil. 

In my garden, this means tolerating some ‘weedy’ species, and clearing areas when I plant, and only then, removing those major competitors from a few square feet of soil. It also means using slug bait or encouraging garter snakes, which eat slugs. If I lived in a low rainfall area, I might be able to justify a bare-earth garden. But with eight to ten feet of winter rain being the norm, along with dry summers, lush is the default for my garden. So my new-old garden has ground covers of sedge, oxalis, forget-me-not, mosses, and only the rapacious ‘take all the nutrients and run’ species are removed. 

It’s a new way for us to think about gardens, but it’s been around for centuries. As an ecologist the idea I like the most is that this promotes diversity in the garden, and diversity always leads to more productivity and better endurance of the ecosystem. 

Rethinking Shoreline Gardens

Kathleen Sayce

Summer can be a thoughtful time for gardeners. First, we see the results of planning and planting in prior years as the plants grow and flower. Second, we naturally tend to think about what might have been—if only I’d planted five of those lilies instead of three; if only the deer hadn’t eaten down that rose; if only the croquet game on the 4th of July had not seen five children tromping (and bashing) through the rhododendrons to get their balls back to the playing field; if only . . .  Third, we contemplate what truly different kinds of gardens might be like. Autumn is a good time to revise and replant gardens, which intensifies thoughtful planning during the summer. 

Yellow sand verbena, Abronia latifolia, lives in open blowing sand areas on the beaches, and has showy bright yellow flowers. Not for a garden with improved soils, sand verbena is happiest in open sand. 

There are several ways to think about revising coastal gardens to reduce time, materials and energy spent caring for them, while still enjoying shrubs, perennials, grasses and other plants: 

One is to plant species that are truly salt, wind and rain tolerant, using those plants that thrive right along the ocean. 

Beach fleabane, Erigeron glaucus, is a low-growing daisy with pink to lavender flowers.Beach fleabane, Erigeron glaucus, is a low-growing daisy with pink to lavender flowers.

Two is to revise gardens to make them ocean friendly. A program of Surfrider Foundation, ( http://www.surfrider.org/programs/entry/ocean-friendly-gardens) ocean friendly gardening is being actively promoted in California. Prolonged drought in that state is driving a serious rethink of the lawn plus shrubs and perennials approach, also called ‘mow, chop and blow’.

Three is to rethink water needs, and shift to native plants that do not need summer water and live only with rainfall; this is called xeriscaping in drier climates. 

These approaches share a focus on water retention, soil building, use of compost and mulches, use of native and drought tolerant plants, and reducing hard surfaces to improve permeability. 

Beach lupine, Lupinus litoralis, lives in open sandy areas along the beach, and like sand verbena really prefers very sandy soils. 

The South Coast of Washington is not California, so the plants we can grow are a bit different, and we aren’t yet in drought conditions. However, unless you truly like dragging a hose around, I recommend re-planning your garden to reduce watering. I limit my watering to those plants by bird baths, and a few plants that grow in pots. The rest have to endure local conditions, or leave (read:  die). It sounds ruthless, but if you pay attention to what lives and what dies without summer water, then you can take a very important step––selecting plants that do not need summer watering. 

Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, grows in large patches, in the dunes, saltmarshes and seacliffs. Closely related species are pink, red, yellow and other colors, and all grow well on shorelines. 

Next comes evaluating just how close you are to the ocean. Within about one thousand feet of the beach, salt and wind are critical preconditions that define what you can successfully grow, and how to grow it. Many plants do well with regular watering in this zone, as watering washes salt off the plants and flushes salt from the soil. Watering all summer runs counter to low input gardening and no-to-low summer watering. It’s important instead to find those plants that tolerate salt and wind and drought, and put down the hose. 

For wetter sites, gumweed, Grindelia integrifolia, has buttery yellow daisy flowers in late summer. 

Plants that do well right along the coast include salal, kinnikinnick, sword fern, Pacific reedgrass, red fescue, tall hairgrass, snowberry, coastal mugwort, yarrow, dune tansy, dune goldenrod, Douglas aster, sea watch (a native angelica), edible thistle, pearly everlasting, nodding onion, beach fleabane, and strawberries. These plants naturally grow on the sea cliffs and in the dunes. There are also many xeric plants from other parts of the world that grow in dry summer shoreline conditions.  Xeric plants include lavender, rosemary, many grasses, some sedges, bulbs, and many more. The full list is long, too many to list or discuss here. For more information, see my blog at http://columbiacoast.blogspot.com, where I posted lists of native and introduced plants that do well along our shorelines.

One of the toughest native shrubs, salal, Gautheria shallon, grows on seacliffs and in dunes, with pink flowers and dark blue berries, and lovely evergreen foliage. 

The soil enhancement process is important to success for many plants. Adding carbon to the soil helps plants thrive in harsh conditions; these include compost, biochar and mulch.  Other shoreline gardening concepts include:  Permeable instead of impermeable surfaces (water absorbing rather than water resisting surfaces, which allow more water to enter the soil); choices for permeability include using gravel instead of concrete; paving with wide gaps, with gravel below, rather than all hard surfaces; mulches instead of bare soil; rain gardens and swales to help runoff water collect and soak into the ground and promote groundwater recharge. These all help retain water on site, clean it before it enters the ground water, and the ocean. 

Black twinberry, Lonicera involucrata, is a tough deciduous shrub with yellow flowers and brid-friendly black berries. 

The thinking behind ocean friendly gardening, at the Surfrider Foundation, is that present (and rapidly changing) ocean conditions are made worse by runoff water, often laden with heavy metals, chemicals from cars, nutrients and pesticides. Ocean-friendly-gardening also includes decoupling gutters from storm water collection systems so that water can recharge in the soil, and cleaning it biologically (with plants) before it reaches the groundwater or flows to nearby streams. 

Seawatch, Angelica lucida, lives on seacliffs, in dunes and salt marshes; four to six feet tall when flowering, plants are host to Anise Swallowtail butterfly larvae. 

These approaches help create gardens that need less water, no pesticides, less fertilizer, and less work to maintain. These aren’t flower-free gardens; they are full of flowers, are bee, butterfly and bird friendly, and are drought and fire resistant. 

As you watch your roses and lilies and geraniums bloom this year, what are you thinking about for next year? I’m rethinking the lawn along the salt marsh, wondering what a tall meadow would be like. I’d like to get rid of the lawn, but I don’t want my yard to go back to trees, which is its default plant community. This is a rainforest area, after all.  A tall meadow is mown once a year in late winter. Visualize tall grasses waving in the wind, punctuated by white angelica and pink native thistles, and magenta-pink spikes of checker mallow, and masses of yarrow. No watering. No summer mowing. I just have to take out those old lilac shrubs, and layer on compost to prep the soil; it could be ready to plant once the fall rains start, if I start this week. 

This and past columns are posted at http://columbiacoast.blogspot.com.

Healthy soils for Garden Plants

Written November 30, 2012, published December 2012

Hand in hand with good plant choices, and planting at the right time (fall) to fit the local climate, is promoting soil health.  There are two paths to take; one is for native perennials, shrubs and trees, and the other is for vegetables. I’ll discuss vegetable soils later. Today, my focus is on ornamental gardens, especially native plants––perennials, shrubs and trees–-and the soil these plants need to grow well. 

On a hillside under pines, Evergreen Huckleberry, Vaccinium ovatum, and Soft-footed Sedge, Carex leptopoda, grow in thick layers of wood chip mulch. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

Our climate is a curious one, with wet winters and dry summers. Wet winters mean that it’s difficult for soils to hold onto nutrients, many of which are water-soluble. Long months of cold rains mean that nutrients wave at plant roots as they wash past and out of reach. Worse, those long wet months bring the ground water table up to the surface in low areas. Roots of most upland plants do not grow in water due to low oxygen levels. The result is these root systems are relatively shallow, and nutrients wash past even more quickly. Also, during severe windstorms, plants with shallow roots are more likely to blow out of the ground. Due to a long wet season, local soils are also acidic; native species tolerate and even prefer this acidity. 

Streambank orchid, Epipactis gigantea, is growing in a low wet swale, amended with compost and aged wood chips. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

In nature, soils store carbon in several forms:  living and dead wood, including logs, branches and twigs, or thatch, and living and dead roots. Many species of fungi and bacteria live on these materials. Wood, roots, branches and twigs are composed of cellulose, the most common biopolymer on the planet, which is made by living plants from sugars formed during photosynthesis to shape cell walls. Those sugars and celluloses are the plants’ building blocks and trade goods. They trade sugars with bacteria and fungi for water and nutrients. 

In thick layers of woody mulch, Stropharia fungi produce mushrooms, the fruits of soil mycelia. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

Different species of fungi live on heartwood, greenwood, cambium, bark, roots, and dead wood. Specific fungi live on living roots, dead roots, and on duff materials––twigs, needles and branches that fall to the forest floor.  Specific fungi associate with specific shrubs and trees, connecting via their mycorrhizae (fungal filaments in the soil, which are often whitish and look like thin fragile roots) with plant roots, to share water and nutrients. 

Mushrooms are abundant in garden soils with ample carbon, such as aged wood chips.  Photo by Kathleen Sayce

The fungi get simple sugars from the plants, and the plants get minerals in return. There may be bacteria in association with both that fix nitrogen, and also share with fungi and plants for sugars.  Animals that live in the soil eat roots, fungi and bacteria, and are eaten by other animals. Their bodies are food for other bacteria and fungi. Soil ecosystems are largely hidden from us by virtue of size and location, as most soil organisms are microscopic and all are out of sight underground. 

To promote healthy soils for native plants, then, it is not sufficient to provide water and fertilizer. In fact, nitrogen fertilizer by itself, without the supporting structure of soil carbon and soil organisms, throws soil out of balance, causing soil carbon to be eaten and further depleted in the soil, year after year. 

Balance is restored to the soil by adding several forms of carbon:  compost, biochar (biologically activated charcoal), tree litter and wood chip mulch. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is not a soil designed for vegetable gardens, but for native trees, shrubs and perennials, species that have lived here for thousands to millions of years. 

Blue-flowered tall camas, Camassia lechitlinii, is growing in a plant bed that was widened; the thick wood chip and compost layer is now ready to plant. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

There are efficient ways to feed these forms carbon to the soil. One is to mix in compost and biochar around the root zone in the planting hole when you put in plants. The second is to layer all of these materials on the surface, year after year. Carbon promotes the growth of soil organisms, which in turn collectively improve soil health, help it retain nutrients and water. 

Wood chips can go on the surface of the soil in a mulch layer. These aren’t fresh from the chipper, but aged chips, piled and kept damp until well-colonized by soil fungi. The piles are aged for a year or more, until fungal mycorrhizae (visible as small white threads) have thoroughly spread throughout the pile. Once a soil is on its way to improved health, in alternate years spread compost or wood chips. 

How do you know there’s enough carbon on top of and in the soil? You will see fruiting fungi (mushrooms) during the wet season. When mushrooms appear, they tell you that the soil has enough carbon to be reasonably healthy. The gain is in the garden: plants need less summer water, grow well without added fertilizers, flower abundantly, set seed, and resist drought and disease. 

Plant in the Fall for good growth the next year

Written November 4, 2012, published mid November 2012

As an ecologist who likes to garden, I’ve worked and reworked the design and plants in my garden for years, starting with a traditional older coastal garden with lawns, rhododendrons, camellias and roses. I tried perennials and cottage-style beds, then a more Mediterranean-style garden with sages, lavenders, rosemary, bulbs, rockroses, and no summer irrigation.  This led me to focus on soil health, lower impact gardening, and to growing more native plants. I always had a few in my garden, especially evergreen huckleberry and sword fern. Now I have many more, and the result is a hardy, tough garden, full of flowers, bees, butterflies and birds, that needs little to no summer water. 

Common Camas, Camassia leichtlinii, grows 30-40 inches tall, with light blue to dark blue flowers, and is very attractive to native bumblebees and early butterflies. Camas grows in spring wet /summer dry soils, in full sun. Photo by Kathleen Sayce. 

Our wet winters and dry summers aren’t common around the world. Places with some rain all year round, or with dry winters and summer rainfall, cover most of the planet’s landmass. Our local area is considered a cool Mediterranean-type gardening zone. In Mediterranean-type climates, the driest time of year coincides with the most sun and heat. Our summer and early fall weather tends to be quite dry. Small patches of this climate occur all over the world at moderate latitudes, yet the total area does not cover more than ten percent of the planet.  

Pacific wax myrtle, Myrica californica, is an evergreen shrub to small tree. It grows in full sun to part shade, and can tolerate both damp and dry sites. Birds like its waxy berries. It makes good hedges for screening, to 10-15 feet tall, and mixes well with shore pine and salal in hedgerows. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

How our native plants cope

Native plants in the maritime Pacific Northwest compensate for dry summers by timing bud-break, leaf-out, flowering and seed production to seasonal water. These plants also engage with soil fungi with roots; this improves access to nutrients and water. Native plants often have two distinct growing periods, spring and fall, and may go partially dormant in late summer when water stress is the greatest. Many flower in spring, set seed by early to mid summer, and wait out the dry season partially dormant; then they put out new roots in fall. They are ready to grow if rain falls during the dry season, but survive if the weather stays dry.  

Kinnikinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, is a low growing evergreen groundcover with pink flowers and red berries. It grows in full sun to part shade, in damp to dry sites, and mixes well with heathers and salal. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

Plant in the fall

The best time to plant is in autumn––after the start of rain, usually October or November. As soils cool down and rain starts, plants’ roots begin to grow. They grow new roots when soils are moist and temperatures are at or above 40 F. In mild winters, this can be almost all winter long.  The bigger the root system by next spring, the more that plant will be able to grow that summer. Fall planting decreases the amount of water needed the next summer because these root systems are bigger than if planted in spring, just before the dry season starts. Reduced watering the next summer by planting the prior fall sounds pretty good. Less watering during the dry season is also very efficient. 

Salal, Gaultheria shallon, is an evergreen shrub that can be kept low or allowed to grow more than six feet tall. It has early pink flowers and edible dark blue berries, and grows in damp to dry soils, full sun to part shade, and mixes well with other shrubs and groundcovers for hedges and woodland plantings. Photo by Kathleen Sayce.

Food for native animals

There is an important ecological reason to use native plants: to support native animals. Insects, birds, small mammals, and the animals that feed on them, are ultimately dependent on native foods. Yes, there are introduced plants that can be eaten by generalist native animals, particularly deer. By and large, most native animals key in on a few native species. If you want butterflies, bees and other pollinators, birds, amphibians and mammals to hang around your yard, put in native plants. Large areas planted to introduced species are ecological deserts for native animals. There’s nothing for them to eat. 

There’s an excellent book on this subject by Douglas Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home, which contains a wealth of details about the complexity of native plant communities, the animals they are food for, and the choices we have to encourage, or discourage, native ecology in our own yards. He writes about Delaware, but the principles are the same here in the Pacific Northwest. 

If you dislike hauling hoses around, and prefer a garden that can take care of itself in droughts, torrential rains, and snow, then select native plants over introduced plants. There are hundreds of species, including trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs. The result is a garden that is more attractive to native animals, including butterflies, bees and birds, which needs little to no summer water, and survives our wet cold winters in good condition.  Don’t forget the time of year to put in those native plants––in fall. 

Indian rhubarb, Darmera peltata, flowers in the spring, then the leaves come out afterwards. It prefers soils that are wet to damp year round, in part sun to shade. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

Pacific Coast Iris: low maintenance wildflowers

Written October 12, 2012, published November 2012

A showy group of irises are native to the West Coast from southern California to southwestern Washington. Called the Pacific Coast Iris (PCI), these species grow very well in our area. There are thirteen to fourteen species and hundreds of hybrids. PCI grow in well-drained soils with some compost and mulch, and prefer part sun to full sun along the coast. Otherwise they need little summer care. They flower from March to June, with peak bloom in May-June. In my garden, they peak just as the lilies start, so I have a continual blooming sequence from March to September, first of iris, then of lilies. The genus Iris is large, with more than one thousand species and many sections. The most well known Iris section is tall bearded (TBI), which are big plants with large rhizomes, very tough, and which grow well in humid wet conditions. The term “bearded” refers to tufts of hairs on the “falls,” the three large petals that hang down in each flower. The upright petals are called standards. There are more than a dozen sections of Iris in the non-bearded group, and PCI are one of those sections. 

PCI Rodeo Gulch, a registered orange with purple signal, from BayView Nursery, Santa Cruz, CA. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

The big yellow TBI that grows along the Columbia River is Iris pseudacorus, yellow flag, from Europe. Yellow flag is listed as a noxious weed in several states, and thrives in wetlands. 

PCI flowers are slightly smaller than TBI flowers; PCI plants are shorter with long, narrow evergreen leaves instead of wide leaves. One species is deciduous, Iris tenax, which lives in southwestern Washington and western Oregon. Plants range in height from less than ten inches to around thirty inches tall. 

PCI Cape Sebastian, an unregistered selection with white flowers and a very showy purple and gold signal. Photo by Kathleen Sayce 

PCI flower color range is wide, from white thru pink, rose, red, orange, yellow, lavenders, blues and purples, browns, to nearly black, which is seen in some very dark red and dark purple flowers. There are hybrids with showy signals (spots on the falls or lower petals), veining, halos, and ruffling. There are wide petal forms and narrow petal forms, bicolor and bi-tone forms. 

PCI Mission Santa Cruz, a lovely rich red-purple flower on a sturdy plant.  Photo by Kathleen Sayce 

Unlike bearded iris, PCI are not wetland plants and do not need much summer water. PCI tolerate wet winters and dry summers; in other words, our normal rainfall patterns are fine for them. They like mildly acidic soils, which is our normal soil condition. A little compost and mulch helps them in sand or clay soils, a little fertilizer promotes flowering. PCI also do well in meadows, where they thrive with an annual fall mowing, which is essential in our climate to keep woody shrubs and trees from growing into grasslands. Native bees, ants and hummingbirds visit PCI flowers, which provide both nectar and pollen. A few are mildly fragrant. 

I have not had deer, aphid, caterpillar, or disease problems in my garden, except when I first planted them. Deer tugged up, chewed on, and spit out all the PCI seedlings the night after they were planted. I found the seedlings the next day lying on the ground, somewhat battered from chewing. I put them back in the ground, and half of them lived. Since then, the deer leave them alone, except for an experimental mouthful every year or so by a fawn that is learning food plants for the first time.  

PCI Blue Plate Special, a registered blue from BayView Nursery, Santa Cruz, CA. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

I started growing PCI more than a decade ago, when I was first practicing dry gardening, and soon learned why PCI aren’t more widely grown: They can be successfully transplanted only for a few weeks in spring, and for a couple of months in fall. I move PCI in the fall, from late September to November, after waiting for wet weather to start, and typically water them only once, the day they are planted. Now I have six species and several dozen hybrids in my garden. Among irisarians, this is barely getting started; I know urban gardeners who grow more than 1,000 iris varieties on a city lot.  Every three or four years they should be divided; if I can’t get to my plants then, I give them more compost to tide them over. 

PCI Finger Painting, a registered blue and white form, from BayView Nursery, Santa Cruz, CA. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

Unlike bearded iris, PCI do not like to sit in hot containers in summer, with hot roots, or to lie on the ground for weeks waiting to be planted. They do not like soggy wet feet in summer, either, or hot humid weather; the latter keeps them from being grown in much of central to southeastern US. 

PCI Joy Creek Orchid, an unregistered selection from Joy Creek Nursery, Scappose, OR, with an orchid flower, and a multicolored signal on the falls. Photo by Kathleen Sayce

Out here on the Pacific Northwest Coast, PCI thrive in all but wetland soils, and in part sun to full sun, even in bright shade. My garden has silty sand with some compost mixed into the soil and mulch on top, and here they grow very well.  One species grows only along the immediate coast from southern Oregon to southern California, Douglas iris, Iris douglasiana. It thrives in salty, windy coastal soils, on sand and on seacliffs. Locally, Douglas iris grows in the Discovery Garden at Columbia-Pacific Heritage Museum, Ilwaco, Washington. These plants are typical: tall, with pale lavender to white flowers with a yellow signal, and usually flower in May-June. 

PCI Cape Ferrelo, a light blue form of Iris douglasiana, photo by Kathleen Sayce

With a huge range of PCI sizes, colors, and forms to chose from, there is a PCI for you, just waiting for a chance to grow in your yard. For more information, take a look at  HYPERLINK "http://www.pacificcoastiris.org" www.pacificcoastiris.org, the website for the Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris.  The society maintains the registry of hybrid PCI. Pages on each registered hybrid are posted in the American Iris Society’s Iris Encyclopedia, at  HYPERLINK "http://wiki.irises.org/bin/view" 
http://wiki.irises.org/bin/view in the PCN section. 

You can also find information about all the other sections of iris on the AIS website.  

Iris douglasiana, Douglas iris, Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum, Ilwaco, WA, a very pale lavender to white flower with a yellow signal on the falls. Photo by Kathleen Sayce.