Willapa Refuge’s Wild Lawn: First Spring

Kathleen Sayce, June 18, 2021

A seedling PCI shows its complex parentage

It’s been eight months since the wild lawn was planted at the new office for Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, and Pacifica irises bloomed in their first spring. I took a few photos when I visited the lawn in April and June, while Program Manager Jackie Ferrier photographed almost every iris that flowered. 

We expect a bigger display of flowers next year as the wild lawn settles in. 

A variety of Pacifica iris grow in the lawn, including I. douglasiana, I. tenax, and seedlings from PCI hybrids. The plan is to let all the plants set seed, and scatter the seed around in late summer. We will also be planting more areas in coming years as the blackberries and other woody shrubs are suppressed around the visitors center and staff offices. One annual fall mowing is planned. Without mowing, woody shrubs and trees would soon (very soon!) take over the entire area. 

Looking NW in early spring to Willapa Bay

The grasses that provide a backdrop to the wildflowers are fescues, including Roemer’s and red fescue, and a low growing fescue mix. A combination of fescue plugs and seeds were used. This is important, because the grasses that grew here historically included reed canary grass, velvet grass and orchard grass, all too large and too dense for irises to thrive with them. 

Thrift in meadow

Iris tenax seedling

Other wildflowers include strawberry, springbank clover, yarrow, pearly everlasting and thrift. 

A new compost facility is selling compost by the truckload, so the next sections of the wild lawn will get a top dressing of compost to boost nutrient retention in winter, and water retention in summer. In these sections the compost will be tilled into the upper few inches. In the original section, we will top dress the lawn with an inch or so of compost next fall. 

I. douglasiana

PCI Mission Santa Cruz

This location was formerly a cattle ranch homesite, and there are thousands of daffodils growing throughout the area. The daffodils were retained as legacy plants, and also put on a nice display last spring. 

This fall we will add more wildflowers, including shooting-stars, common camas, checkermallow, chocolate lily, blue-eyed grass, and of course, more irises. 

If anyone wants a plant list, please contact me by email and I will send you the plant-list-in-progress. 

Where The Wild irises Are—A New Wild Lawn

by Kathleen Sayce

Inspiration can come from unexpected directions. Last spring a friend—who lives up a valley about an hour away—sent me photos of irises flowering in the fields around her home. She was looking for plant identification, which I was pleased to supply—these are wild Iris tenax, growing in northeast Pacific County, Washington. Curiously, there are no herbarium specimens for this species in this county, but they grow wild by the thousands here all the same. 

Why was I looking for inspiration? A group of volunteers (horticulturists and ecologists) put together a planting plan for the new headquarters landscape at Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, which is also in Pacific County. 

To the left, Iris tenax growing wild in a pasture, Willapa Valley, photo by Megan Martin.

This is a summer-dry climate, so getting the plants off to the right start is critical, and fall planting is the first step. 

The property has irrigation water available; a storm last week added a couple of inches of rain while putting out wildfires to the east in the Cascades, and ending the dry season. Site access was held up by delays in road rebuilding for several weeks—the new road is finally going in right now, about four weeks later than planned. 

These delays mean that instead of including images of the newly planted and seeded wild lawn, we have images of plants ready to place, and local wild Iris tenax from the nearby valley— the inspiration for this new landscape. 

To the right, a few dozen I. tenax clumps in a pasture, photo by Megan Martin.

The design goal is all native plants, low maintenance, with low watering needs, in a visually pleasing layout. Shrub borders and trees were easy to design, but the wild lawn needed a focus. Armed with new images of fields of irises and other wildflowers among grasses, we had the inspiration we needed. 

The site is being prepared right now for planting. We will plant numerous wildflowers, with an emphasis on irises, including I. tenax, I. douglasiana and a few hybrids, along with yarrow, field checkermallow, goldenrod, pearly everlasting, Douglas aster, and other perennials. Chocolate lilies, camas and Columbia lily are some of the bulbs that are native to this area.  The grass matrix will be a mix of low growing fescues, including red and Roemer’s fescues. 

Above, I. tenax growing with daisies, bracken-fern and grasses in a pasture, photo by Megan Martin. 

The wild lawn will be mown once a year, in fall, and after the first year, will not be watered in summer. Fall mowing means we will be able to collect and spread seed on the site to continue to distribute irises around the wild lawn, which covers more than 20,000 square feet. The budget did not have room for the 1000s of plants we needed, so we will start with a few hundred iris, and spread their seeds around to expand the planting. 

Above, a few pots of iris, freshly planted last spring, photo by Kelly Rupp.

There will be some spot management of blackberries and other woody perennials as the lawn settles into its new configuration, on what was formerly a farm homestead surrounded by coastal forest at the south end of Willapa Bay, Pacific County, Washington. We expect it to take about three years to settle in. 

Looking upslope at the wild lawn along the view corridor--the iris+fescue area will be near the building. Photo by Todd Wiegardt. 

Check back next year for an update on this wild lawn.

Photos for this blog were contributed by Megan Martin, Kelly Rupp and Todd Wiegardt.