Topsana Littlestar is an indigenous agricultural consultant. She took us to the coastal bluffs near clam beach where a homeowner is removing invasive species to replace them with native plants.
“As people move in and build on these bluffs and even clear the grasslands behind me, they were actually all cedar forests,” says Littlestar. “So now they’re all grasslands with which puts houses on these cliff sites at risk from collapsing into the sea. What’s really important is to actually get down into the ravine below these cliffsides and plant native trees on the slope and other native flowers.”
Native plants aren’t just pretty, they’re an important part of the indigenous people’s diet.
“Evening primrose is very important to the indigenous peoples diet, as well as being an important soil restorer because the root, the taproot on these are massive and that is what is retaining these bluffs.”
Invasive plants can overtake native, medicinal, edible plants.
“Right here in this section, you see quite a bit of native edible plants,” she says as Topsana gestures towards an ivy-covered grove. “And i know it’s hard to see them. and one of those reasons is that people have planted invasive ivy. Ivy is horrible. Ivy kills all of our native plants. It’s killing our native trees. These other trees have had the ivy removed off of them. And this project will take three to five years to maintain continuously getting out these ivy clumps and cleaning them up so that the natives can thrive.
“We have the native blackberry and this is different than the one you see growing in all the gulches. We also have huckleberry, we have salal, salal is another edible berry, it is excellent ground cover. it should be growing here instead of the ivy.”
Littlestar says to do some research before going to the garden store. “Foxglove is a common plant that people think is absolutely gorgeous. And it is, but it’s also very poisonous. These blossoms, the seeds, every part of this plant is poisonous to both pets and children. So they ingest it, it can kill them.”
Opt instead for plants native to our area, like yarrow. “This plant is not only edible, but it’s medicinal,” says Littlestar. “It has a lot of really important properties for coughs, cough suppression. So it can be harvested again, the flower, the leaf, through every part of this plant. And again, they also are maintaining the soil structure and holding in among all these invasive grasses that are taking over.”
