Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Potawot Health Village

Yesterday I visited the Potawot Health Village in Arcata. I love going here because the building and landscape are beautiful and the plants are all native. Minus the weeds, of course. "Potawot" is the Wiyot name for the Mad River, which runs nearby. The building is a health clinic for the native tribes of the Pacific Northwest.



Acer circumnatum with Fragaria chiloensis ground cover.



Patio area with containers of Deschampsia caespitosa and Sisyrinchium californica. Informal hedge of Loncera involucrata, Rosa californica, and Myrica californica. I love the creek systems they have running in the landscape and the dead trees that they've erected (buried? Reebarred? I'd like to know how they did it).





Megan trying some berries of Sambucus mexicana. They were too tart. The rosehips and currants weren't that great either (dry/bland and bland/seedy, respectively). The black huckleberries, however, were excellent. With the taste of muffins still fresh on my tongue and dreams of huckleberry jam, I think I'd like to grow 30 or so huckleberry plants from seed and have a proper huckleberry patch in the yard one day (it would take many years to have plants large enough to bear fruit). I'd better get reading.


At the far end of the health village, there is an impressive community vegetable/fruit garden with an orchard (couldn't capture the expanse in this photo).




Even the parking strips have native shrubs and trees growing in them. The Symphoricarpos shrubs are cut like boxwood hedges. I'm not sure I like the way they are pruned or not.


There are also interpretive panels along the trails surrounding the building. Tule's scientific name has been changed to Scheonoplectis acutus FYI. And some of the plant signs don't have scientific names, but I have no other complaints. The signs are nicely done.

Since we visited on Labor Day, the main building was closed. I thought it would be. Sometime I'll have to blog about the inside. It's amazing! And it even has an all-native courtyard garden...

Take a look at this (United Indian Services) and this (Architecture and more). Oh, and one about the plants.

2 comments:

lisa said...

hey, how do you seperate your photo's with text? i couldn't figure that out. are you allowed to taste of the fruits and such at the health village? your not a native person, you know!!

Gardener of La Mancha said...

Working with text and photos in a posting is a lot like Word. You kind of click to the bottom right of a photo and hit return. Or infront of the photo under that photo. You can do it!

Tasting is an essential part of the experience! It's not like I raided the community garden! It was locked.. :)