Backyard Habitat Certification Program

Nico’s certification visit was a cold February day, but the promise of his NE Portland yard is clear even during winter hibernation. Spring and summer will be spectacular!

Nico removed all of the grass in the front yard and has created a lush habitat of native and ornamental plants, meandering along a lovely small dry creek bed. Under large, mature rhododendron and pieris shrubs near the house, Nico planted maidenhair, sword, and deer fern, along with bunchberry and inside-out flower. The sunny central yard features snowberry, checkermallow, California poppies, native strawberries, native columbine, and Oregon stonecrop, while the stream bed is lined with large and small rushes, Oregon iris, lupines, and blue-eyed grass. Nico has also seeded the front parking strip with native wildflowers. The front yard is still a work in progress, as it needs one more canopy layer for full naturescaping, but Nico is already planning next steps.

The backyard highlights Nico’s wide-ranging gardening skills, including tea camellias (for actual tea!), and a mix of edible, ornamental, and native plants. These range around walkways and multiple outdoor areas for human (and pollinator) inhabitants to enjoy. The highlight is a magnificent mature red-flowering currant. The yard also boasts a vine maple, native honeysuckle vine, more maidenhair, sword, and deer ferns, salal, wild strawberries, and oxalis.

After removing extensive Armenian blackberry, ivy, and Traveler’s Joy clematis, Nico’s backyard has earned Silver certification – and with just a few a few more elements, Nico is poised for Gold!

East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District

Over the past two years, Paige worked to clear the jungle of ivy and Himalayan blackberries that covered a large area of her backyard in the Hazelwood neighborhood. She also removed a large area of lawn and a hazardous birch tree in the front of her corner lot home. Then came naturescaping.

A mature Douglas fir shades the northwest corner of the backyard. A lovely vegetable garden to the front west of her corner lot is interspersed with many unique native plants. She has focused on many varieties of native berries and has even naturescaped the parking strip adjacent to the west side of her home! The welcoming habitat she created over the past two years encouraged a family of Oregon Juncos to build a nest in her eaves.

In the sunny parking strip she has planted blackcap raspberry, red-flowering currant, Douglas mugwort, serviceberry and yarrow. Throughout different areas of the backyard she has planted a variety of PPL plants including gooseberry, salmonberry, wild strawberry, stinging nettle, baldhip rose, blue elderberry, and mock orange. She also planted a black hawthorn tree in the northwest corner of the backyard.

Congratulations, Paige, on your Silver Certification. We look forward to visiting you again for an Upgrade Visit as your dedication to your habitat will surely lead to it growing and thriving in years to come!

East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District

Kara and her partner moved into the Lewelling neighborhood of Milwaukie two years ago, and immediately began making changes to their yard.

They planted a cascara tree in the front yard, along with evergreen huckleberry, mock orange and osoberry, and groundcovers such as riverbank lupine, yellow-eyed grass, and California poppy. On a strip along the street they added a wildflower seed mix from Sparrowhawk, which is dominated by farewell to spring, grand collomia, goldenrod, and diamond clarkia in this season. Under the shade of a neighbor's cedar in the backyard, they planted tall Oregon grape, maidenhair fern, deer fern, snowberry, fringecup and oxalis, to name a few.

Kara, thanks for all your amazing efforts to create a beautiful landscape that is so beneficial for pollinators, birds, and other local creatures! Congrats on your Silver certification.

Clackamas SWCD

WeedWise: A conservation program of the Clackamas SWCD

City of Milwaukie

Vince lives in a lovely house in the Balch Creek neighborhood of southwest Portland. The house and yard are on a steep slope and Vince has been very active in transforming the yard into a native habitat.

Vince has removed the noxious weeds present at the time of the site report: ivy, blackberry and Robert’s geranium and is vigilant in keeping them at bay. He has delighted in adding a great variety of native plants into his front, side and back yards. His greatest success is in the backyard where he has all five canopy layers from Western red cedar down to a forest floor of ground cover including fireweed woodland and wild strawberry, and bleeding heart. For mid canopy layers he has Douglas spirea, lady fern, sword fern, and Pacific ninebark, thimbleberry, and western viburnum to name just a few of the more than 75 native plants he has put into his yard.

He has also taken a small shady and wet area in his side yard and created a fern haven with a variety of ferns, native grasses and Oregon grape. In his front yard there is more of a mix of native and non native plants. He has three canopy layers there and plans to continue to replace non native plants with native ones so over time more of the front yard will be naturescaped

Vince doesn’t use pesticides, leaves his leaves, has a bat box, and has reduced his outdoor lighting. These are just some of the pesticide, storm water and wildlife stewardship practices he follows.

Congrats Vince on all your work. Your yard has earned Gold certification.

Metro