![]() These desert shrubs in their soft hues of grays, greens, yellow, and rust hold up in the harshest of conditions and provide refuge for elk, deer, coyote, lizards, and dozens of species of birds and small mammals. Other shrubs include bitterbrush, rabbitbrush, and saltbush. Only near streams or seeps is there enough year-round moisture to sustain clumps of willow, alder, and cottonwood trees.Īrtemisia tridentata, big sagebrush, is by far the most common shrub, but other Artemisias include stiff sage, three tip sage, and prairie sage. Plants tough enough for these conditions include a variety of shrubs, bunch grasses, and forbs. Plants in the sagebrush-steppe area survive on a minimum of moisture and make do with some very shallow, rocky soils. Little to none of that comes during the summer, which accounts for the region’s lack of appeal to many gardeners. Lying entirely east of the Cascade Mountains, it receives only eight to12 inches of precipitation each year. The region is most strongly defined by its dryness. ![]() ![]() But the sagebrush-steppe region is home to some of most adaptive and intriguing plants on earth, and gardeners can learn much here to apply to eco-friendly rock gardens and xeriscapes. By nature, gardeners like to make things grow, and by the looks of things, not much grows in that desert-like region, except sagebrush. Though it is the most widespread of plant ecosystems in eastern Washington, covering 24,000 square miles, the sagebrush-steppe is probably the least understood, and therefore the least appreciated, especially among gardeners.
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