Green in the summer, Eugene to Grants Pass (house, live in)

[rarvesen]

A basic question... is it green in the Eugene area down to Grants Pass all year? Is it green right now (August / September)? By green, I mean grass and other vegetation is green without watering, or are only lawns that have supplement water green? Thanks.

[kadylady]

Lots of green trees and other plants, but most of the grass dies out during the summer, without water.

[PNW-type-gal]

In a normal summer, it doesn't generally rain much at all (other than the coast), which is why the part of Oregon between the Cascade Mountains and the Coast Range (which kinda sorta includes the Rogue Valley) is considered a "Mediterranean" climate. It might not be what most people think of when they think Mediterranean, but that's the definition.

So, yes, lawns require watering to stay green and vegetable gardens must be watered along with various shrubs and trees. Many people pick varieties of shrub and tree that do not have to be watered, or watered very sparingly. Lawns come back to green very quickly, though.

Look at a graph of the yearly precipitation and you'll see that Oregon (any part of Oregon) has no summer monsoon, rainfall really drops off in the summer - short though that may be.

ETA: while the lawns may turn brownish by August, the landscape is still generally very green.

[Fiddlehead]

The only areas that seem to stay green are the coastal areas that get a lot of fog. Since the summers never get warm, the never dry out. Also, the fog drops moisture at night. So, it is strikingly lush along the coast, but brownish inland, except deep in the woods or along streams.

[Larry Caldwell]

My pasture is still green, but this year is the exception. We had a very wet and late spring. The hills don't have much topsoil, so dry out and turn brown almost as soon as it quits raining. The trees are always green.

[kadylady]

Larry, is that why some fields are brown and others are still green? The topsoil? Good to know. I was wondering if it had to do with the type of grass that was growing. So, I guess I need topsoil. LOL

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by kadylady

Larry, is that why some fields are brown and others are still green? The topsoil? Good to know. I was wondering if it had to do with the type of grass that was growing. So, I guess I need topsoil. LOL

Yeah, that and irrigation. Grasses will find their own habitat, so I'm sure the type of grass makes a difference too.

[kadylady]

@Larry. Is there a grass seed that you would recommend? Something we could throw around at the end of winter that might give us a little more green in the summer. We don't want to irrigate the pasture, just around the house a bit.

[Vaedrem]

Fig trees do very well in Southern Oregon--they are covered in green leaves and very sweet fruit all summer without any rain or irrigation. Much better than grass.

[Brenda-by-the-sea]

As PNW-type-gal pointed out, western Oregon has a Mediterranean climate (or at least a Mediterranean precipitation pattern). That means there's no rain to speak of from late May to early October. Vegetation needs water to photosynthesize. There are basically five ways that plants can stay alive in a dry-summer area:

1. Exploit wetlands and riparian habitats
2. Sink very deep roots that find residual water in deeper soil strata (an approach mostly limited to large trees).
3. Have some kind of water storage tissues and a rosette shape that will funnel condensation down to the root system.
4. Do all your growing in the spring and early summer and go into a condition of near stasis during summer and fall (again, requires some water storage capacity and probably small grayish leaves or leaves with a waxy cuticle).
5. Go entirely dormant during summer.

With such shallow roots, #5 is the only available strategy for most grasses. The hills in Oregon don't typically go the beautiful blond color that the hills in central California do (it's more of a dull buff color), and they tend to have more shrubby growth with other kinds of plants. But for the most part, there is a gradual de-greening of the native grasses on the Oregon hillsides from June to October. Some people say they can assess the fire danger is any given season by gauging the color of the hillsides. And as for your Eugene-to-Grants Pass corridor, it will be closer to being summer-green near Eugene, which is in the Willamette Valley and less so around Grants Pass, which is in the much warmer and drier Rogue Valley.

At any rate, no one ever suffers from green deprivation in western Oregon. Even at the driest time of the year, the trees are green, and trees are the dominant vegetation in most of the western part of the state.