Plant Spotlight: Symphoricarpos Species

What It Is

Symphoricarpos is a genus of shrubs commonly known as snowberry or coralberry, depending on the color of the fruit. It is native throughout North America, with the species Symphoricarpos albus common throughout the Inland Northwest. Our native snowberry is easily recognizable in the autumn and winter for its dense clusters of white berries, which persist months after the leaves fall. Its delicate foliage and small pink flowers are attractive but inconspicuous. All varieties are fairly small shrubs, generally topping out at five feet high and wide.

This hybrid coralberry holds its bright berries well into winter.

Why to Grow It

As the name suggests, snowberry and coralberry are prized for their prominent berries. A variety of cultivars and hybrids have been bred by the floral industry for a spectrum of pink berry colors and longevity in cut arrangements. You can enjoy those improvements just as easily in your garden, where the berries can also provide a winter food source for songbirds. Snowberry is also an excellent plant for naturalizing areas and erosion control, as it slowly spreads to form thickets when left to its own devices. Regularly harvesting its berry-covered stems, however, is enough to keep it in check.

Where to Put It

Symphoricarpos should be planted in full sun to part shade. Native Symphoricarpos albus is quite drought-tolerant, but nursery cultivars do best with supplemental water in the summers. Snowberry is fairly unremarkable most of the year, so place it with other plants that will offer more dynamic interest through the spring and summer, then let it take center stage in the winter. If you plan to use the berries in flower arrangements, consider locating snowberry off a covered porch or other area where it can be easily accessed when snow begins to pile up.

Seven Styles of Stone Steps in the Landscape

Stone steps take a functional necessity and turn it into a landscape feature in and of itself. The character of the stone adds interest and depth to what can be a mundane element. Below are seven different uses of stone steps in the landscape, each with its own character.

Rock Garden

These stone stairs traverse a boulder retaining wall, but the abundant vegetation softens all the rock to create a lush landscape. Creeping thyme spills across the quartzite steps, with mounding perennials and bunch grasses tucked into planting pockets.

Into the Woods

The verdant woodland setting for this project calls for unobtrusive materials and restrained design. The quartzite stone slabs that make up the staircase are from a nearby quarry in Montana, while the plant palette is primarily native species. The vegetation infringes on the staircase, blending the man-made with its natural surroundings.

Color Coordinated

With a long steep slope to cover, the series of retaining walls and staircases could have been overwhelming. The light tan stone steps, however, play off the tan accents on the residence and garage, unifying the landscape and architecture. With the retaining walls utilizing the same natural basalt as the garage foundation and the concrete patio tinted to match the dark gray house paint, this project embraces a color-coordinated vision.

On the Waterfront

This patio is the perfect place to enjoy the lake, and a great pit stop in and out of the water. There’s no sandy beach to enjoy, but the tan stone steps bring in a beachy vibe while providing easy access directly into the water. The rough texture of the stone gives the surface good traction when wet, unlike wood or metal steps.

Turning Back Time

For the transition from a manicured upper tier of the backyard to a wooded slope below, boulders harvested from the site anchor the staircase in the landscape’s history. The imperfect, irregular surfaces would be unsuitable for stairs with heavier use, but as an occasional staircase they function well.

Bridging the Gap

Stone steps don’t have to go up and down—here they go across. Two stone slabs cantilever from each side of a small stream to form a bridge across. The stone forms a stable footing while blending into the woodland setting.

Stone Landing

Here a single stone slab is used at the back door of the house. Not only does it physically transition between the interior floor height and the patio, but it also provides a thematic transition from the modern house design to the more relaxed, natural landscape. The stone step serves as a teaser for the materials used throughout the backyard.

How to Use Plants to Attract Birds

Watching lively birds flit around the yard can add an extra layer of enjoyment to your outdoor space. Bird feeders will certainly bring avian visitors, but a little planning and some well-selected plants can create a full service bird habitat. Birds have certain needs for survival, and by making sure your landscape meets those needs, you can turn your yard into a bird-watching hotspot. Here are the basic steps to take to invite birds in.

The dark-eyed junco is a year-round visitor to Spokane and Coeur D'Alene and is common even in urban gardens.

Provide Shelter

No matter the time of year, birds need shelter. They need somewhere to hide from predators, somewhere to build their nests, or simply somewhere to get out of the weather. To attract a variety of birds to your yard, provide them with a variety of plants to shelter in. Each species has its own preference about what height or density of vegetation it prefers, and this can change throughout the seasons. Plant trees with a mix of large, medium, and small shrubs to give a range of options.

When choosing plants, consider winter as well. Evergreens with dense foliage can give excellent protection from predators, but also provide extra insulation in frigid temperatures. Dead trees are also important sources of shelter for birds. If you have enough space on your property that a dead tree won’t threaten structures or people, leave it standing to create an outstanding habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Provide Food

Though you can provide food for birds year-round, selecting plants that will provide seeds and berries throughout the winter will give birds an important resource in the lean winter months. By planting a variety of food sources, you can add some diversity beyond standard bird seeds and attract different birds in the process.

While plants with showy winter berries might seem like the most obvious food choice for birds, they are also drawn to seeds from many plants you may not think of. Cones from pines, firs, spruces, and other evergreens hold nutritious seeds, as do spent perennial wildflowers like lupine, echinacea, and milkweed. Ornamental grasses can even provide nutritious seeds for birds. To actually be useful to birds, however, it’s important to leave your garden cleanup for the springtime. By deadheading, trimming, and pruning in the fall, you remove valuable nourishment that could otherwise sustain birds through the winter.

The small cones of western red cedar hold seeds for a wintertime snack.

In warmer months, insects are a large part of the diet for many birds, so consider making your landscape favorable to them as well. Use native plants, which have been shown to attract more insects, both overall numbers and numbers of species, than exotic plants. Limit or eliminate pesticide use in your garden, as many products are toxic to organisms beyond what they are designed to control.

Hummingbirds also require a healthy supply of insects to feed on, but otherwise have different needs than songbirds, as they feed on flower nectar rather than seeds. Tubular flowers like penstemon, salvia, and agastache are fantastic food sources. And while hummingbirds certainly enjoy sugar water feeders, the red dye in store-bought mixtures is actually harmful to them. A homemade solution is easy to make by boiling one part sugar and four parts water.

Other Considerations

There are, of course, other things you can do to make your landscape attractive to birds. Building bird houses appropriate for the breeding birds in your area could yield a nest, which will give you weeks of enjoyment. A bird bath provides a place for grooming, which is critical to a bird’s health, as well as providing drinking water. In the winter when open water is scarce, a bird bath with a heating element will become a magnet for songbirds.

A basic overall principle to remember is that making your landscape better resemble nature will attract nature into it. To enjoy birds in your own backyard, you may have to make concessions for their happiness. You might see a tangle of shrubbery, but they see a cozy place to hide from a predator. A mess of spent flowerheads is a wintertime meal for a bird, and an aphid infestation is a summertime buffet. With a little planning and compromise, however, you can attract a variety of fascinating avian neighbors to your yard.

Plant Spotlight: Thuja plicata

What It Is

Thuja plicata, the western red cedar, is an evergreen conifer native to the Pacific Northwest. In Washington, it grows mainly on the wetter west side of the state, but it also grows throughout North Idaho. In fact, North Idaho is home to a huge western red cedar thought to be the largest tree east of the Cascade-Sierra Crest. Although it can reach giant proportions in the wild, there are many nursery cultivars available with more restrained growth, and Thuja plicata is often included in the arborvitae group. Cedar is well known for its iconic scent, as well as its natural insect repellent and rot-resistant qualities, making it a popular choice of wood for building outdoors.

Why to Grow It

The flat, lacy needles of Thuja plicata provide year-round beauty, as well as excellent screening. It is a great conifer for partly shady spaces, and the fragrant foliage is a classic holiday decoration. If the tree is limbed up as it matures, it maintains its interest with shaggy red bark that weathers to gray. Western red cedar’s dense foliage also provides excellent shelter for songbirds and wildlife in the winter months.

Where to Put It

Western red cedar works well as a single specimen tree in the landscape, but its dense structure also makes it an excellent hedge. While it thrives in full sun in its native range, a little bit of shade is helpful for the hot, dry summers we get in the Spokane region, and it does well into partial shade. Providing it with plenty of water is also important here, especially for plants in full sun, and Thuja plicata can even tolerate wet, boggy soils.

How to Incorporate Art in Your Landscape

Incorporating art into your landscape can elevate it to another level, but it can be hard to figure out how to bring art in without it feeling like an afterthought. If you’re in need of inspiration, here are six ways to include art in a thoughtful manner.

Lead the Eye

Art is a great focal point in the garden. A piece of art draws the viewer toward itself, which creates a flow through the landscape. Whether it’s a major statement that defines a space or a smaller piece that teases the viewer from afar, art can be used to lead the eye and direct people through a landscape.

This partially hidden pagoda sculpture invites visitors in to discover the landscape.

Create a Theme

Art can also be used to establish and strengthen a theme throughout the landscape. It can unite disparate elements or echo similar ones. A bold piece of art can dictate the style of a whole space. Meanwhile, on constrained properties where different parts of the landscape are separated from each other, repeated artworks can create a rhythm among themselves and connect those spaces.

This standing rock sculpture echoes the use of natural materials throughout the landscape.

Add Whimsy

At its most basic, garden art brings personality into the garden. It can be an opportunity to showcase a durable collection, or just to make wishful thinking into reality. You might never get a blue heron drinking from your water feature, but with a piece of art you can have one year-round. You won’t see a cactus or agave surviving the Inland Northwest winter, but a sculpture has no problem. Garden art can simply be a fun expression of your whims.

Steel barrel cactus sculptures bring a touch of the Southwest into this Spokane backyard.

Include the Old

Landscapes can grow stale or simply not meet your needs. In the event of a landscape makeover, elements from the old landscape can be incorporated as art in the new landscape. If you’re decommissioning a fountain, consider adding some drainage holes and turning it into a planter. Salvaged bricks can be turned into a decorative patio inlay, or an old gate could become a trellis. Get creative to preserve the history of your site while adapting it to fit your lifestyle.

This metal jungle gym was original to the house; the homeowners preserved it as a sculptural centerpiece.

Inject Color

Art can provide forms and colors that no plant can match. It offers predictable, year-round interest with little to no care. Glass sculptures and gazing balls, glazed ceramic urns and bird baths, and powder-coated metal trellises and screens are just a few options for bright, cheerful color that can keep your winter garden from feeling boring while being just as dynamic in the growing season.

These colorful glass sculptures anchor the planting bed year-round.

Give it a Job

Art doesn’t have to be an aside in the garden; it can be a functional part of the landscape. If you’re putting in a fence, it could feature a decorative pattern. Your bird feeder could hang from a metal sculpture instead of a simple hook. Upgrade your flower pots to statement-making planters, or switch out your coir door mat for something more fun. If it’s something you look at or use regularly, make sure it brings you joy at the same time.

This metal garden gate was commissioned from a local artist and matches a larger gate at the driveway entrance.

If you’re looking to design your landscape and don’t know where to start, get in touch with us at Pacific Garden Design to talk about your project!