Native flowers at SeaDance Ranch
When we purchased it last year, the west half of Sea Dance Ranch was a monoculture of European Beach Grass with a smattering of shore pines, sitka spruce, beach peas, sword ferns, huckleberry, salal and vetch The Beach grass has prevented many natives from establishing in the newly created dunes. Over the past year we have mown down with our brush mower about 3 acres of beach grass and started scattering native seeds including beach peas, yarrow, pearly everlasting, foxglove, beach daisy, Douglas aster, goldenrod, two varieties of milkweed, echinacea, black-eyed susans, penstemon, trout lily, Oregon iris, quamash, native hyacinth and a native grass mix. Most of these I "bombed" onto the property by mixing the seeds with damp soil and throwing them by the handful around the environment. These will be important on supporting the adult Oregon Silverspot Butterfly when and if it gets reintroduced to the peninsula. It will also support native pollinators that ...
