Spring 2025 Nature News from the Baltimore Woods Meadows

As of early June, it’s still spring in Northwest Oregon, and despite the sudden dryness and the frequency of hot days in May, bees and other pollinators are buzzing flowers, birds are nesting and raising their newly fledged young, and we are grateful for the abundance of life in our yards & natural areas.

In the Baltimore Woods Meadows, the grasses are growing taller and beginning to form seeds. After our extensive re-seeding efforts of the last two years in the Lower Meadow, this meadow is looking much more lush than it has in years past. We hope to increase the presence of native grasses and lessen the onslaught from the introduced grass varieties such as velvet grass and reed canary grass, among others.

Native grasses in Willamette Valley meadows are almost exclusively “bunch grasses” that grow in a clumping form, which means that other native plants can grow in their vicinity without competing for soil, light, and space. Non-native species are often lawn-type grasses, which spread vigorously by underground rhizomes, and can form an impenetrable mat which smothers native plants. A field of non-native grasses may look like a lush meadow, but the diversity of plants and invertebrates will be greatly reduced in such an environment, for not only do weedy grasses out-compete native plants, but bare soil patches, which many insects and other invertebrates need to form their tunnels for homes for themselves and their eggs, are vastly reduced by these spreading grasses.

In the world of flowering plants, we have thriving colonies of several native species, including Meadow Checkermallow, Douglas Aster, Goldenrod, Lupine, and Phacelia.  Our efforts to introduce other Willamette Valley natives to increase the diversity of plant species is being sorely tested by munching rabbits, but our fenced beds in the lower meadow, near the North Catlin Street entrance, have allowed some of these species, to flourish and flower, among them Springgold, a species of yellow-flowered lomatium; narrow-leafed milkweed, with its showy heads of pink flowers; and from the lilly family, Ookow (purple blooms), Fool’s onion (white), and Harvest Brodiaea (vivid violet). Several of our flowering plants, such as Camas, Tarweed, and Brodiaea, in addition to our emblematic tree species, the Oregon White Oak, have cultural significance as food sources for many of the local Tribes of the Willamette Valley.

The work we are doing aims to not only protect and maintain these few precious acres of open land, but also to foster high-quality and diverse habitat that mirrors how the Willamette Valley once looked before it was developed by European settlers. We are rewarded in this work in so many ways: by the songs of our native birds, among them white-crowned sparrows, goldfinches, spotted towhees and song sparrows in the meadows, and downy woodpeckers, red breasted sapsuckers, common yellowthroats, Bewicks wrens, chickadees, cedar waxwings, white breasted nuthatches, and warbling vireos in the woodlands. Additionally, a balm for the naturalist’s soul, is the abundance of bees, beetles, and butterflies sipping nectar and provisioning their own young with the richness of resources provided in this small, but thriving natural area in our small corner of North Portland.

(A brief reminder to dog owners: We know that many people enjoy walking their dogs in our natural area, and your canine friends are welcome! But please do keep the dogs on a leash, and stay on the trails, so that wildlife can go about the business of living & raising young without frequent disturbance from playful dogs. Thanks to the many thoughtful folks who always do this!)