Northwest Natives- Larch Mountain

View of Mount Hood from the top.

Larch Mountain is a great place for cycling or hiking only an hour's drive out of Portland. The elevation at the top is about 4,000 feet above sea level, so it is quite a climb. It is probably the closest place to Portland where you can find the types of natural landscapes found in the Cascades such as alpine meadows, talus slopes and subalpine forests.

Cornus canadensis

These cute bunchberries were growing along the trail at the beginning of the hike. They can be grown in residential gardens, but are a bit fussy and like a lot of decomposing wood and organic matter in the soil, like there is in the forests around here.

Dicentra formosa

The bleeding heart was still blooming up there even though it was June. It made a nice ground cover beneath the fir trees. These pacific bleeding hearts becoming much more common in nurseries and seem to stay nice looking for longer in the season than the common bleeding heart.

Oxalis oregana

This Oxalis looked almost like a body of water it was growing so densely around these logs.

 Castilleja miniata

Penstemon rupicola

This common red paintbrush growing out of the rocks can be found at some native plant nurseries, but be aware that it needs to be companion planted with some other particular plant species. One of these species is this penstemon growing on the rocky cliff.

talus slope