A DIY guide to building your own western hemlock/ Douglass fir forest in an urban area, plus a comprehensive PNW native plant list.
Forest Park, Portland, Oregon
A Western Hemlock/Doug Fir Forest is the most common plant community found in the Portland area. The forest is dominated by large conifers, and features a wide range of associated species of trees, understory shrubs, and groundcovers.
Forest Park, Mt Hood Nat'l forest and the Boring Lava Domes are good examples of this plant community.
In this habitat, the most common trees are conifers such as Douglas fir, western hemlock, grand fir, and western red cedar, but deciduous trees, like alder, and bigleaf maple, are also prolific.
The shrub layer, or understory, is made up of vine maple, Oregon grape, cascara, and osoberry.
Groundcover plants vary in this ecosystem, and the makeup is based on how much sunlight and moisture reach the forest floor. Overall, the dominant ground cover is sword fern which thrives in the moist and rich forest soil.
Choosing Plants for Wet or Dry Conditions
Species that tolerate the driest conditions within this community are indicated with a “☀ ” in the list below. Along drainages or in places where the soil is poorly–drained or the slope is north–facing, the forest composition varies toward species more tolerant of moist conditions. Western red cedar and salmonberry are more common.
Species that tolerate the wettest conditions—not necessarily wetland—within this community are indicated with a “🌧 ” in the list below. Next to streams in the riparian areas of the west hills and Boring lava domes, more deciduous trees and moisture–tolerant plants are found. In these areas, cottonwoods, willows, and Redosier dogwood begin to appear.
TREES
Bigleaf Maple
Red Alder
Douglas Fir
Western Red Cedar 🌧
Western Hemlock
Grand Fir
Western Flowering Dogwood
Cascara
Oregon Ash 🌧
Black Cottonwood 🌧
Bitter Cherry Salix
Scouler Willow 🌧
Pacific Yew
Madrone ☀
Suksdorf’s hawthorn
Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine ☀
Oregon White Oak ☀
SHRUBS
Vine Maple 🌧
Western Serviceberry 🌧
Cascade Oregon Grape
California hazelnut
Red osier dogwood 🌧
Salal
Oceanspray
Indian Plum
Pacific Ninebark 🌧
Red Currant 🌧
Thimbleberry
Salmonberry 🌧
Red Elderberry
Common Snowberry
Red Huckleberry
Tall Oregon Grape
Western Wahoo 🌧
Hairy Honeysuckle ☀
Black Twinberry 🌧
Western Crabapple 🌧
Mock orange
Common Chokecherry
Sticky Currant 🌧
Baldhip Rose
Nootka Rose 🌧
Swamp Rose 🌧
Pacific blackberry 🌧
Sitka Willow 🌧
Blue Elderberry
Creeping Snowberry
Oval–leaved Viburnum
Oregon Tea–tree ☀
Mountain Balm ☀
Blue Currant 🌧
Straggly Gooseberry
Pioneer Gooseberry ☀
Blackcap Raspberry
Evergreen Huckleberry 🌧
HERBACEOUS, GRASSES, ETC.
Vanillaleaf 🌧
Northern Maidenhair Fern 🌧
Wild Ginger 🌧
Lady Fern 🌧
Slender-foot sedge 🌧
Miner’s Lettuce
Candy Flower
Bleeding heart
Blue Wildrye ☀
Cleavers
Pacific Waterleaf
Twinflower
Western False Solomon’s Seal
Starry False Solomon’s Seal
Oregon Oxalis 🌧
Palmate Coltsfoot 🌧
Licorice Fern
Sword Fern
Hooker’s Fairybells
Smith’s Fairybells
Bracken Fern ☀
Clasping–leaved Twisted–stalk 🌧
Fringecup
Trefoil Tiarella
Piggyback Plant
Western Trillium
Inside–out Flower
Stream Violet 🌧
Baneberry
Pathfinder
Large–flowered Agoseris Anemone
Western White Anemone
Spreading Dogbane ☀
Red Columbine
Goatsbeard
Deer Fern 🌧
California Brome
Scouler’s Bellflower ☀
Few–flowered Aster
Angled Bittercress
Bigleaf Sedge 🌧
Henderson’s Wood Sedge 🌧
Fireweed
Woodreed
Enchanter’s nightshade
Cutleaf Goldthread
Bunchberry
Hooker Fairy–bell
Large–flowered Fairy–bell
Wood Fern 🌧
Spreading Wood Fern
Western Fescue
Bearded Fescue
Wood Strawberry
Sweetscented Bedstraw
Oregon Avens
Cow parsnip 🌧
Smallflowered Alumroot
White–flowered Hawkweed ☀
Oregon Iris ☀
Parsley–leaved Lovage ☀
Gray’s Lovage ☀
Columbia Lily
Broadleaf Lupine
Field Woodrush
Small–flowered Woodrush
Skunk Cabbage 🌧
False Lily–of–the–valley
Western Bluebells
Leafy Mitrewort 🌧
Five–stamened Mitrewort 🌧
Indian-pipe
Streambank Springbeauty 🌧
Baby Blue–eyes
Devil’s Club 🌧
Mountain Sweet-Cicely
Sticky Cinquefoil
Native Heal–all
Wintergreen
Yerba Buena
Small-Fruited Bullrush 🌧
Cooley’s hedgenettle
Douglas’s Aster 🌧
Western Meadowrue 🌧
Foamflower 🌧
Western Starflower
Stinging Nettle 🌧
Giant Vetch
Small Wind–flower
Oregon Anemone
Slender Boykinia 🌧
Fairy Slipper ☀
Pacific Hound’s–tongue
Mountain Lady–slipper 🌧
Brittle Bladder Fern
Giant Fawn–lily
Giant Rattlesnake–plantain
Oak Fern
Orange Honeysuckle
Turtle Head 🌧
Pacific Sanicle ☀
Snow Queen
Small-flowered trillium
Hall’s Violet
Evergreen Violet
Comentários