Regional Picks: Fast-Filling Plants – Northwest

1. ‘Cosmopolitan’ Miscanthus

Name:Miscanthus sinensisvar.condensatus‘Cosmopolitan’

USDA Hardiness Zones:5 to9

Size:4 feet wide and 7feet marvelous

Conditions : Full sun to fond shade ; copious , moist grease with plenty of compost and manure

The flow white - stripy blades and stately height of this grass are an contiguous eye - catcher in any garden . apace reach over your headspring by the late - summertime barbeque season , this variegated miscanthus is consummate for a temporary screening or as a bluff situation of color in a bed . The strong stem entertain it upright and keep flopping later in the year . In former autumn , coppery seed heads form a feathery crown , gradually fading to fluffy silver plume .

2. California Wax Myrtle

Name:Morella californica(syn.Myrica californica)

Zones:7to9

Size:12 to 15 foot marvelous and wide in10years

circumstance : Full sun to full shade ; moist , well - drained soil , but will digest sandy soil , common salt spray , and wet feet

So many ready - develop hedge industrial plant turn out to be hood as they mature . California wax Vinca minor is the exception . The thin , glossy dark evergreen plant folio and slender , delicate fork give a light , more airy feel in the garden . This useful West Coast aboriginal grow speedily to 6 feet in three or four years , then slows in growth as it matures . It also responds well to heavily pruning or shearing , making it one of our few natives that can be used for schematic clipped hedging . Often , it can be come up growing along the glide in brackish wetlands . Once install , it is also quite drought tolerant , but will not grow as apace . truehearted ontogenesis occurs in expert garden soil with regular tearing , but keep it juiceless in September to help harden off young belated - season growth for winter .

3. Dwarf Purple Willow

Name:Salix purpurea‘Nana’

Zones:4to8

Size:8 to 10 feet tall and across-the-board , but can easily be kept small

status : Full sun to partial nuance ; loves rich , moist soil , but abide a broad sort of situations

I was directly taken by this willow when I first find out the foliage . The slender profane - green leaves have a adorable matte finish and are amazingly free of the dirt ball or disease problems so common in other willows . The compact habit and slender , deep purpleness halt only make a good thing better . midget purple willow is very quick grow when untested and will reach 5 to 6 feet tall in two or three years if irrigate and fertilized . It can easily be kept to a height of 3 to 5 foundation with an yearly winter pruning to the primer .

4. Dyce’s Shield Fern

Name:Polystichumdycei

Zones:6to8

Size:30 inches talland36 inches wide

term : Partial to full shade;rich , moist soil with tidy sum of compost and manure

This recent introduction to the gardening universe has been hoarded by fern collectors for years . Dyce ’s shield fern , also called Dyce ’s holly fern , has rich hybrid vigour , becoming a full - size of it graceful bouquet of broadly arching evergreen frond in about three long time . The newly emerging fronds are covered in ash gray and buff - colored tomentum that age to a soft , divide dark green . One of my favourite features about this raw fern is that fledged plants flesh plantlets at the peak of the frond , where new plant will form if the gratuity is immobilise to the earth over winter . Dyce ’s shield fern is perfect to showcase a specimen or to use in shadowy drifts , but provender and water it regularly during the growing time of year .

Richie Steffen is the curator at the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle .

photograph : ( 1 and 4 ) , Richie Steffen ; ( 2 ) , Joshua McCullough ; ( 3 ) , Michelle Gervais

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Regional Picks: Fast-Filling Plants - Midwest

Regional Picks: Fast-Filling Plants - Southeast

Regional Picks: Fast-Filling Plants - Mid-Atlantic

Regional Picks: Fast-Filling Plants - Southern Plains

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