Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: Rosa hirtula at the Washington Park Arboretum

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Rosa hirtula at the Washington Park Arboretum

Rosa hirtula May 2010

I was walking with a friend in the Washington Park Arboretum, on a sunny & warm May day, when we saw Rosa hirtula. We had neither ever seen a bird nest in a rose before. It was a mighty big rose. You can see it on the service road that sets out from the Graham Visitors Center parking lot. Rosa hirtula is not far south of the bee hives. The tag is easy to find. Rosa hirtula comes from Japan, where it grows in the area around Mount Fuji.

1 comment:

Alice Joyce said...: Jordan
You're making me nostalgic for Seattle and Wash Pk Arboretum!
Very cool to see bird nesting in a rose. We've a tiny baby towhee hiding out on the ground, with Mom & Dad hovering. Shouldn't have left the nest, too tiny! Put it back in, but it wouldn't stay there.

Re: the dry stream at Matanzas - I believe it is a true arroyo. We get such heavy rains, if only sporadically.; June 22, 2010 at 9:29 AM

Post a Comment

About This Blog

This blog began in 2008 as Metropolitan Gardens to provide information on gardening in Seattle & places like it. Click on Gardening in Cascadia. The blog expanded to include Parks P-Patches Public Gardens in the US, Canada & Europe. Then Nature was added. (The difference between nature & gardens is intent. Nature happens. Gardens are planned.) Many recent posts are not about Seattle, or even Cascadia. They are Urban Landscape: streetscape & architecture. Cascadia is the region including the Cascade Mountains of Washington & Oregon. If you want to contact the blogger, leave a message in comments. Comments are moderated & private messages will not be posted.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.