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GOING
‘NATIVE’
IN SEASIDE
SUBMITTED PHOTOS
LEFT: Dorota Haber-Lehigh is surrounded by native plants in her garden in the Sunset Cove. Haber-Lehigh teaches English as a second language and botanical illustration at Seaside High School.
RIGHT: A distant chair invites a moment of serenity near a creek in Dorota’s Haber-Lehigh’s garden fi lled with native plants.
Botanical artist Dorota Haber-Lehigh’s garden celebrates Northwest beauty
By NANCY MCCARTHY
FOR EO MEDIA GROUP
t fi rst, Dorota Haber-Lehigh and her
husband, David Lehigh, tried growing
grass in their shady, wetland front
yard just below Tillamook Head. But after
several years, they realized it was a losing
battle.
The grass didn’t get enough sun, and they
had to reseed it every year. Water fl ooded it
in the winter, and it would be ruined when
deer walked over it.
So Dorota, a botanical illustrator who is
devoted to preserving local native plants, de-
cided to recreate a native forest surrounding
their home in the Seaside Cove area.
Now, the half-acre yard is a happy home
A
to salal, skunk cabbage, deer and sword
ferns, huckleberries — both red and blue —
vine maple, and other native species.
“We stopped fi ghting the grass and started
allowing whatever wanted to grow there,”
Dorota said.
Some of the plants are “rescues” she
collected, with permission from Superinten-
dent Sheila Roley, from the hillside east of
Seaside Heights Elementary School, where
the new Seaside School District campus
will be built. Logging on some of the site is
about to begin.
“We made trips and trips and took buck-
ets and shovels and brought back a little
of everything,” even though the task was
exhausting, she said. But so many native
plants had to be left behind.
“That’s sad, because we see all of this
native vegetation disappearing,” she added.
The new plants have taken to her yard
well, noted Dorota, who teaches English as
a second language and botanical illustration
at Seaside High School. She also mentors
students who work in the school’s culinary
garden.
“Everything I planted this year looks like
it has been there forever, but it hasn’t,” she
said.
Skunk cabbage, salmonberries and ferns
grow along the creek that runs through the
yard. A graceful hemlock tree provides
shade.
A bridge built over the creek offers a
seating area for Dorota and David to relax
and enjoy the natural setting.
Trails, outlined in barkdust, meander
through the area for the deer. Dorota has
taken into account that the deer are bound to
nibble on some of the plants, which grow in
abundance.
“I want it to go wild; I’m OK with that,”
said Dorota, who also wants to add more
mushrooms — a particular interest for her
— to the yard.
When she plants the native plants like
rattlesnake plantain (a native orchid) or
native currant, she considers what creatures
will come to her garden.
“We’re trying to create a habitat that
attracts hummingbirds, bees and birds,” she
said. “The birds like the elderberries.”
Continued on Page 7