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Tadpole Haven: Planting a Flag for Local Flora in Woodinville

18.05.12

I don’t have a particularly green thumb. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy gardening, or that I don’t appreciate a beautiful landscape. I do. I just haven’t had a lot of luck getting the seeds and seedlings I so optimistically sow each spring to survive and thrive in my yard.

I’m feeling a new resolve, however, after visiting Tadpole Haven , a native plant nursery located just off Paradise Lake Road in Woodinville. Natives, it turns out, are relatively low maintenance; in fact, says Tadpole Haven owner Shirley Doolittle-Egerdahl, that is one very practical reason for planting them.

“They’ve adapted to our climate,” she says, making them easier to grow in our yards. But Doolittle-Egerdahl, who has owned and operated Tadpole Haven since the early 1990s, feels there is an even better reason to incorporate native plants into local landscapes.

“It’s kind of a moral issue,” she says. “They were here first.”

Noting that many people who live in Woodinville came here from elsewhere, Doolittle-Egerdahl explains that planting natives in a home garden can “ground you in the terrain (in which) you have chosen to live.” Growing natives can be “a way to heal the little patch of nature you call a yard,” she says. “It’s very healthy for a person’s psyche,” she adds.

Source: Patch.com