Pikes/Pines | The native berries of Capitol Hill summer

The evergreen huckleberry (Image: WSU)

Every year, it’s harder and harder for me to feel excited about the Fourth of July. The waste, noise, and pollution is the most ridiculous way to celebrate a very dubious heritage (though I’ll admit having fun with friends and family outside is an exceptionally good way to spend a day). However, not only does the Fourth mark the end of Juneuary in my personal calendar, it also marks the beginning of berry season. The Pacific Northwest cup overfloweth with native berries to enjoy and that’s something to celebrate.

First, I will include the “Um, actually” part of this love letter to wild fruit. Not everything we call a berry is actually a berry in the botanical sense, even if from a culinary perspective we do. Botanists call any fruit grown from the ovary of a single flower a berry. They are mostly fleshy except for their seeds, which are inside the fruit. Blueberries are well named, while strawberries are not technically berries (though watermelons and tomatoes are). From the perspective of someone eating fruit, it really doesn’t matter that much, but several of the berries on my list below are not considered berries by botanists. But they also spend their days peering at the sexual parts of plants, so we can nod our heads and carry on enjoying these juicy capsules of sunshine. (Um, actually, if you like flowers, you too are a plant pervert.)

You might appreciate Himalayan Blackberries overtaking an unkempt corner or grow blueberries in a planter on your deck but we have many lovely native plants that bear lovely treats and have deeper roles to play in local ecosystems. These fruits have always been staples of the diet of the first people of the Hill and all across the Pacific Northwest. With plants as common as Salal and Trailing Blackberry, we can appreciate native plants and their connections to people and the more than human world. That’s what I think about when I consider the very muddled legacy of being an American – that we need to embrace the true heritage of the places many of us are at best guests.

But instead of being exacting and serious about the environment, genocide, and more, I am instead going to rank some native berries according to nothing but my personal opinions. I might as well be ranking 1996 hip hop albums releases, because I expect strong opinions and an overwhelmingly difficult time choosing the number one spot (just in case you were wondering, right now it’s Redman – Muddy Waters). And just like music, I am going to leave some options off the list because, well, they’re hardly palatable. The only requirement is that these “berries” need to have, at one point, grown on the Hill, and now find their way into our native gardens and restoration plans instead of maybe growing wild.

Osoberry (Image: Burke Herbarium Image Collection)

  1. Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis) – Leave ’em for the birds; too bitter for me to love them. Not only are they not actually berries, but drupes with a little pit containing the seed (true plums are also drupes). I’d rather eat their leaves, which taste a bit like cucumbers. And besides, as one of the first fruits to ripen, they get gobbled by the birds almost immediately and are already gone.

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Pikes/Pines | Three apps to help you learn more online when you’re offline in the great outdoors around Capitol Hill

Jseattle gets around on iNaturalist

I will forever argue that finding people to learn with will always be better than learning only on your own. My recent escapades as a lifelong learner have had me diving deep into diverse topics like wooden spoon carving and contributing to the Washington Bee Atlas, where I started out “on my own.” Many people raised in the United State might have been subliminally led to believe that being “self-taught” is something to be deeply proud of. Certainly it can be. But this bootstrapping is just another way of saying you put in a lot of lonely hours into something. I took leaps and bounds in both these nerdy pursuits when I finally met some folks IRL – plus it was way more fun.

That being said, you don’t always have a bee expert at your side and we live in a brave new world of naturalist resources, often on our phones. With summer approaching, some of us spend more time outside and might even have some extra free time to ogle flora and fauna. It might seem ironic that in the days of disconnection from nature and an alarming decline of biodiversity worldwide, that we have more natural history apps than ever. But really it is because of this drifting away that people have developed said resources – we might need to get away from our phones more but we also might as well use them for good.

I might be willing to lug about a textbook called “The Solitary Bees,” but I wouldn’t recommend it. Your pocket computer has so much to offer and much of it is free. Here are three apps we should all have, that will make your summer more interesting, and might tell you what plants, bugs, and birds are about while sunning yourself at Cal Anderson. Continue reading

CHS Pics | Geomagnetic storming continues above Capitol Hill — Here’s a look at this weekend’s Northern Lights over Seattle

A weekend of electromagnetic storm activity predicted to be the “best aurora viewing conditions that many of us in the PNW have ever experienced” lived up to all hopes Friday night as the Northern Lights appeared over Capitol Hill, Seattle, and across the country. Here are a few scenes captured from around the Hill Friday night into Saturday morning as the two large storm pulses hit overnight.

While an anticipated second round caused by the “large, complex sunspot cluster” never fully materialized Saturday night, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s suddenly very popular Space Weather Prediction Center says that more geomagnetic storming is coming. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | The reliable Butter Butts are back on Capitol Hill

A “Myrtle” Yellow-rumped Warbler in winter plumage (Image: Brendan McGarry)

This time of year I am always listening for the next new arrival, no matter where I am. A surprise visitor is certainly more likely during spring migration — and, because I enjoy seeing common birds filter in and out as they pass by or arrive to breed. I have written about spring migration a lot on Pikes/Pines, but that’s because it is a source of renewed excitement about birds and phenology.

The same way we get excited about flowers blooming, seeing feathered friends arrive is a serious source of happiness and curiosity. Never is the movement of birds exactly the same each year because weather and other factors are never exactly the same – even with the help of Bird Cast and years of experience can’t you totally predict what birds show up (but boy, is it fun when you find that you’ve hit the mark). However, there’s always things you expect, like for instance Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata). Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Three plants you might want to weed out of Capitol Hill ASAP

Hairy Bittercress, Common Foxglove, and Herb Robert can be beautiful — but you may not want to let them spread

I grew up with a mother who embodied the restlessness of the plant world – always dividing clumps of successful plantings, dealing with sudden uprisings of unplanned seedlings, and generally moving things about as season and biology allowed. If you own or live near a manicured garden, you know that it takes constant input to keep it looking a certain way. Mainly because nature abhors a vacuum and plants grow according to genes, which we only have partial control over. Humans are not masters of our surroundings, we are just a maintenance crew along for the ride of growth and decay.

The part of gardening no one likes is weeding. The end result might be satisfying but the effort involved and the endlessness of it is what drives people to the herbicide aisle. A more refined approach to weeding is trying our best to avoid it by sidestepping situations that lead to its necessity. But that’s not what I’m here to write about this week.

This topic of “weeds” is near and dear to my heart as I work to transform my yard into a more biodiverse space by including a host of native plants. Often what results from my clearing of vinca and blackberries are a host of introduced annuals laying in wait as seeds. I’m after a situation where I can leave things to a native seed bank. This may be a losing battle in a highly altered landscape but I soldier on.

However, knowing who is springing up can be a fun exercise, a way to honor the plants while learning how to usher them away. Keep your enemies close right? I find this lessens my frustration at finding a newly cleared area of my yard seeded with yet another unwanted plant. Here’s a few of the recent plants that have been on my mind and that you almost undoubtedly have seen on the Hill.

Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) Continue reading

CHS Pics | Enjoy the blossoms of the Akebono Cherry trees of 21st Ave E

Far from the crowds wandering the quad at the University of Washington is a Capitol Hill street that also blooms beautifully in spring.

21st Ave E — just north of Aloha and south of Prospect — is home to one of Capitol Hill’s best blooms of cherry blossoms. The old trees line a couple blocks and draw small crowds of their own to swirl feet through the pink and white drifts and take pictures. Continue reading

Hollingsworth’s first co-sponsored legislation passes full council

(Image: SPU)

It wasn’t her legislation but District 3’s representative on the Seattle City Council marked a milestone earlier this week as the first bill from the committee she chairs was passed by the full body.

Joy Hollingsworth joined here eight council counterparts Tuesday in approving legislation that will allow the city to undertake “ecological thinning” and a limited timber sale in its highly protected Cedar River Watershed east of the city. Continue reading

We have a winner — The first daffodil bloom of Seattle ‘spring’ spotted in Volunteer Park

No more callers. We have a winner. The contest to spot the first daffodil bloom in Volunteer Park lasted about three weeks.

The Volunteer Park Trust announced over the weekend that the first photo of a bloom has already come in after a park visitor found the small burst of golden yellow just steps away from the park’s historic conservatory.

CHS reported here in January on the trust’s contest to reward the eagle-eyed visitor who spots the first Volunteer Park daffodil bloom of spring.

Despite the topsy turvy effects of a fading El Niño, Seattle’s official spring is still a long ways off. The first day of spring 2024 is recorded as March 19th. You can turn your clocks forward an hour a week earlier on the 10th.

As for the park, there will be hundreds more where the first came from.  In 2021, volunteers planted 25,000 daffodil bulbs in tribute to Doug Bayley, co-founder of Volunteer Park Trust and “the visionary who conceived of this beautiful and impressive swath of yellow returning permanently every spring.”

 

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TODAY AROUND CAPITOL HILL

Pikes/Pines | Marcescence: Why some Capitol Hill trees hold onto their leaves until winter’s bitter end (and maybe why you are completely justified in holding onto your favorite old jacket)

(Illustration: CHS)

It seems that most people cannot help but plant trees whenever they have an opportunity. Over years, the settlers of Capitol Hill have cut down and replaced countless trees — native old growth firs and hemlocks turned to introduced oaks, ashes, elms, and maples. These new residents are mostly deciduous — but have you ever noticed that not every one of them drops their leaves?

They say nature abhors a vacuum. The typical understanding of this is that if there’s an opportunity to be had, some species will jump in and give it a try. Another similar way of thinking of this is that if there’s an adaptation to be had, some species might give it a go. Sometimes we might not know exactly why something is the way it is, but boy, do we like to equivocate when we aren’t quite sure. In this case, the focus of our equivocation are trees that demonstrate marcescence.

The root of this word tells a tale (as most words do if we bother to follow their trail) — marcere, is a latin word that refers to something drooping or withering. This is quite descriptive of a desiccated brown oak leaf still hanging on the tree that grew it, months after others have been shed, attached but no longer alive.

A tree demonstrating marcescence keeps some, or all of its leaves attached throughout the winter. Continue reading

There is a big year of voting ahead — Warm up with the 2024 King Conservation District election

A year of major political decisions starts with a smaller, mostly online vote in Seattle and King County.

You have until February 13th to cast your ballot in this year’s King Conservation District board of supervisors race for Position No. 1:

For the fifth year, the King Conservation District election will primarily rely on electronic ballot access. Ballots will be available to eligible voters online through the KCD website from January 23, 2024, at 8:00 AM through February 13, 2024, at 8:00 PM. Voters may return ballots electronically through the online ballot access system or reach out to KCD for assistance. Democracy Live operates the online ballot access portal and King County Elections will tabulate all ballots and report all results.

The board leads the natural resources assistance agency created “to promote the sustainable use of natural resources through responsible stewardship.” It covers most of the county including Seattle.

The 2024 Position 1 race features three candidates.

Brittney Bush Bollay wants to return to the board to support “local agriculture, clean waterways, abundant forests, and healthy salmon” while safeguarding the budget, and “growing partnerships with other government organizations,” and shaping “a new, fair contract with our unionized staff.” “During the past three years the Conservation District has entered a period of unprecedented stability and success, and I pledge that we will only grow from here,” the incumbent writes. Continue reading