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Barbara B. Harrell

@bbharrell.bsky.social
481 followers 369 following 429 posts

Organic gardener, nature lover, habitat restorer, night protector, cook, piano player, family historian, retired Ob-Gyn MD, proud mom and grandma, and a lot of other stuff

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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
More pileateds today, viewed through window with Acopian #birdsavers. I think this baby was trying to tell me something, lol, before Mama called her over to our cherry snag. #birds #PNW #Bellingham #woodpeckers
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
While I'm at it, here's an update re our back lawn #restoration. Started in 2024 by adding a few shrubs that deer tend to ignore. Let native wild strawberries invade, then removed sod bit by bit. #LawnRemoval #HabitatRestoration #NativePlants #PNW Photos Jun 23, Feb 25, Jul 26, Jul 26.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Update. A few species have been shaded/competed out, but our back slope #restoration now has 73 species, including a new Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) and a new patch of California oatgrass (Danthonia californica) (native in #PacificNorthwest, not just California). #habitat 1) Jun 2025 2) Apr 2026
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
More from Samish Hill today. Just me and @steveharrell.bsky.social. We saw two other humans and one smiling dog during 3 miles on trail. #Bellingham #PNW #nativeplants
Ghost plant aka American Indian ghost pipe plant (Monotropa uniflora), amid blackberry seedlings. Not a fungus, but not a photosynthesizer either. Red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) too high to reach, growing out of a tree trunk as they often do. (We have one doing that at home, that I finally stuck in a cottonwood stump with a cage over it after deer uprooted it from the ground, twice.)Red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa)Piggyback plant (Tolmiea menziesii), a favorite in the houseplant trade. Native ground cover here, often observed trailside.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Just a little hike up Samish Hill, one of our favorites here in #Bellingham.
White pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) amid tangle of ocean spray (Holodiscus discolor), fireweed )Chamerion angustifolium), ferns, etc, backed by dark green conifers.View east from clearing near top of Samish Hill, looking across Bellingham Bay toward Orcas Island and Canada.Magenta flowers of fireweed, so called because it quickly asserts itself after fires (if there aren't too many deer around, that is).Native trailing blackberry (Rubus ursinus), bearing more heavily than usual this year. Delicious small berries when ripe. Characteristic long blue stems in lower right.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Summer color for bloomscrollers 🌺 Nodding onion, Cascade penstemon, deer-fenced cape fuchsia and crocosmia—all of intense interest to our local rufous and Anna's hummingbirds. English lavender occupies bees and other pollinators, seems to please the neighbors ;-) #PNW #Bellingham #garden #habitat
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
I love our enclosed garden in spring, especially after rejuvenating rain (which we badly needed here in #PNW). A place in the heart. Those upside-down wastebaskets that cost three times as much when they're sold as cloches keep the birds off the lettuce. It works! 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Steller's jay sunning. Freaking out the bushtits nesting nearby, who did a great job of dive-bombing that jay away last Thursday. Sorry I can't show their nest--it's masterfully hidden. #birds
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
This is our former back lawn today, with native strawberries blooming in the middle of spring. #nativeplants #lawnreplacement #habitatrestoration #habitat #nevermow 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
The is what we mean by pollen season, here in the #PacificNorthwest. Red alders have finally finished spewing pollen, but bigleaf maples are in full reproductive mode, and those are big trees! #PNW #Bellingham 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
I do love willow catkins, from soft minky gray to floppy yellow. There are Scouler's willow (Salix scouleriana), but so many look alike. Can you spot the bushtit nest in the red-flowering currant? (They're deconstructing last year's in the hemlock for this one. Smart.) #nativeplants #PNW #habitat 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Finally, spring is springing here in #Bellingham WA 🌱 Planted half a dozen tall Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) and several red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) as 2-gallon shrubs in autumn 2018. Look at them now! Bushtits already nesting in the nearest currant. #nativeplants #PNW #habitat
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Lettuce in our garden is still outgrowing bugs and slugs despite the ideal slug weather, but must be floated in water before eating. (Slug poop.) Surprised to find a few coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) still blooming inside the fence. Dry heads already being devoured by birds, earlier than usual. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
8 years on, and I'm still relieved by the #nature we see from our bedroom here in the middle of #Bellingham, compared to the view from our last home in the middle of #Seattle. Did what I could to green things up there, but built is built, I guess. Crows were the only birds we could attract. #habitat
A sunny sky in Seattle in 2017, with a few puffs of white clouds. View east toward ship canal bridge that carries I-5 through the center of town, with the Montlake bridge visible beyond it. Many plants in ceramic pots (most acquired second hand from surrounding suburbs, some from a Queen Anne mansion) on wheeled saucers.Same morning. View south down Lake Union, toward downtown Seattle. Space Needle at the western edge of this outlook.View northeast from our bedroom today. Currants and hazels still in yellow leaf. Redtwig dogwood red, but only a few leaves remaining. Large hemlock tree at center marks the line between our restoration and City of Bellingham greenspace called Salmon Woods, which is also undergoing restoration. If we stand at the foot of that hemlock, we can see the creek below.View north from our bedroom today. Redtwig dogwood on City property nearly bare. Red alders still mainly green. Western red cedars have already shed their needles for the year. (Yes, evergreens drop their leaves, just not all in the same year. Our cedars go through a phase when maybe a quarter of their needles turn red-brown, then drop. Beneath these old cedars, you will find a mulch of needles over a foot deep.)
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Our loaded flowering crabapple (malus 'Adirondack') today. Planted as a small sapling in 2019, and selected because #birds like its fruit. (Not all crabapples are palatable to birds. These need to be sweetened by a hard freeze.) Robins cleaned them off in Jan '24, but nobody ate them in '25. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Dreary if badly needed November rain has set in here in the #PacificNorthwest. It has its charms, but does kinda squelch hiking and gardening (for me, anyhow). Here's a reminder that summer is just around the corner😊 🌱 #wildlife #habitat #gardening
Sedum oreganum blooming in wide beige textured container. Pointy yellow petals on red stems with knobby red leaves, seeking sun above green base. 7-5-25Spotted towhee with black head and ruff resembling medieval executioner's hood; red eye, robiny red-orange shoulders, dappled white breast. Perched in mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii) amid vibrant green leaves and floppy-petaled white blooms with central puffs of pale yellow stamens. 6-12-25A pair of dappled fawns exploring an area beside our vegetable garden fence, amid beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis), yellow-blooming native potentilla (Dasiphora fruticosa) etc . 6-29-22Lavender (all but 3 of them English, Lavandula angustifolia) blooming in front our our fenced vegetable garden, in various shades of purple, lavender, and white, a year after we replaced our front lawn with it. 6-21-25
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Here she is in evening light just now. 🌱 #PNW #Bellingham #fallcolor
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Time for Seiryu maple (Acer palmatum dissectum 'Seiryu') to shine. Just getting going, now that the neighboring dogwood has lost most of its leaves. We're in a lull between storms, and flocks of bushtits have been visiting Seiryu daily, feeding on something. Not sure what. 🌱 #Japanesemaples #PNW
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
I was wrong. That wasn't peak color yet. Maybe this is 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Garry oak (Quercus garryana) aka Oregon white oak, prime #native #habitat, used to be common in #westernWA, but the usual culprits nearly eliminated it. Some remain in San Juan Islands, eg Turtleback Mountain Preserve on Orcas, where oak seedlings are protected from deer to assist #restoration.
Tall Garry oaks with straight upright trunks and typical oak leaves, most of them still green. Garry oak can also spread wide and become quite gnarly, with twisted branches. Photo taken at Turtleback Mountain Preserve, Orcas Island, October 15, 2025.Short, probably 3-year-old Garry oak sapling with crinkly brown and yellow leaves, growing amid dry grass. Enclosed in wire mesh to prevent browsing by deer. Photo taken at Turtleback Mountain Preserve on Orcas Island on October 15, 2025.First-year Garry oak seedling amid fallen oak leaves, fallen madrona leaves, moss, grass, and other plant species. Madrone (locally madrona, Arbutus menziesii) is abundant in Turtleback Mountain Preserve on Orcas Island, where this photo was taken on October 15, 2025.Our Garry oak, about two feet tall when we planted it five years ago. Now about eight feet tall and still green. The mesh surrounding it protects it from deer and rabbits. Garry oak is late to leaf out in spring; leaves turn brown and crinkly in late autumn but most remain on the tree through winter. Photo taken October 17, 2025.
Hoping for acorns next year!
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Another small series from our main back slope #restoration, from 9-17-23, 11-9-24, 2-15-25, and yesterday 10-17-25. The big hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) straddles the line between our property and a City of Bellingham greenspace that includes a branch of Whatcom Creek below. 🌱 #nativeplants
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Back from two days on gorgeous Orcas Island with its spectacular views from Mt Constitution summit, our inn on Eastsound, various trails on protected Turtleback mountain, but there's no place like home. That's Satomi dogwood (Cornus kousa 'Satomi') at peak color on our #PacificRim side. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Decided I needed something for fall pollinators, so I added 8 Hall's asters (Symphotricum hallii) and 6 Douglas asters (Symphotricum subspicatum). Instant buzz of little native bees. I really do think our #nativeplantrestoration of the back #lawn is finished now, except for growing! 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Welp, here it is today, after I harvested a few stalks. Very strong celery smell. Plan to try it in a Chinese stir-fry dish. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
Every once in a while, I'll glance out the window and see a nice set of antlers in our back yard. Today's blacktail bucks bent, browsed, and broke the heck out of our osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis), but actually I believe they improved it, lol! 🌱 #nativeplants #PNW #Bellingham #wildlife
12-point buck behind yellow-blooming potentilla/dasiphora fruticosa shrub, and in front of redtwig dogwood with shiny dark green veined leaves, intermixed with delicate, light green leaf clusters of vine maple.Same buck stepping out onto a stone patio that has clumps of moss here and there, edged by a concrete brick retaining wall with a yellowing western red currant (ribes sanguineum) behind it.An approaching 6-point buck stopping a respectful distance from the 12-point buck, against a backdrop of western red cedar (Thuja plicata) behind the corner retaining wall of the patio.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
Late summer 2025 from near the back edge: 1) blue elderberry (volunteer) 2) evergreen huckleberry, Douglas aster, meadow rue (volunteer), sword fern, western red cedar 3) closer view of Douglas aster intermixed with sword fern #habitatrestoration #nativeplants #PNW #Bellingham 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
We planted 3, and here you can see how small they were in May 2018 (orange flowers beside fence at top of bank):
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Anybody recognize this flowering quince (Chaenomeles) cultivar? Sold here in #BellinghamWA as 'Cameo' in Oct 2017, when we were rushing to stabilize a neglected slope. Definitely not double peach-colored Cameo. (We loved our Cameo in Seattle.) Now ~ 7' tall by > 10' wide, after repeated pruning. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Slug not seen at 7 AM, chowing down on squash blossom at 8 AM. Yuck! Invasive European garden slug, scourge of #PNW gardens. We have both red (Arion rufus) and black (Arion ater). Yesterday one ate to the ground all five of my covered 3" endive seedlings. (Photo below is from 2022, but same idea.) 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Nothing says August like pollinators dancing inside squash blossoms. Hoping to avoid blossom-end rot this year, after amending the soil to make it less acidic. We'll see. Meanwhile, thank you to all the bees! 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Stunning. Even in 1972 when @steveharrell.bsky.social and I brought our baby with us to live in rural Taiwan, it was obvious that the US was far less supportive of #children, culturally and structurally. But now, from Youyou Zhou's piece at Washington Post, on why #birthrate is so low here:
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
@steveharrell.bsky.social and I inherited this mature climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala subs petiolaris) when we moved her 8 yrs ago. We righted its tilting trellis with ground-fastened guy wires (usually hidden by ornamental grass). One of my favorites on our non-native side, year round ❤️ 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
Bunny thinks she's hiding. Yesterday morning when I walked out of the garage, she was waiting in front of the garden gate. She moved away when I approached, but not until after one of those slinky-style stretches that prove rabbits can fit through a 2-inch hole. 🌱 #rabbits #wildlife #nature
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Pulled this out of our herb bed this morning, thinking it might be some variant of clover. Probably cached by a Steller's jay. (We don't see many squirrels inside the fence, and we do see jays with peanuts.) Didn't know peanuts would grow here, lol. 🌱 #Bellingham #PNW
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Here's how it looked July 10, 2024:
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Finished replacing our back lawn with natives! Last step was the addition of 8 soapberry/russet buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis) plants, positioned to shade overexposed salal (Gaultheria shalon) in PM. (Deer have ignored soapberry on our back slope.) Pics today. 🌱 #lawnreplacement #nativeplants
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
Anna's hummingbirds and 'Lucifer' crocosmia, inside the garden fence because deer. This goes on all day, when they aren't doing competitive aerial displays or dive-bombing flocks of bushtits (or the occasional barred owl!). Usually they retreat when I appear, but not today for some reason. #birds 🌱
Gray-green hummingbirds eyeing each other on gray hogwire fence against lush green background. Squares of wire fence are four by four inches, and the birds are considerably smaller. Red flowers at edge of photo.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
I was waiting to post these from a week ago until I could get a good hummingbird shot, as Anna's and Rufous hummingbirds are often battling over the crocosmia, or perching on the fence behind it. But the instant I appear with my camera, away they zip. And now the daisies are starting to fade. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Blacktail bucks and yearling this morning, purposefully avoiding lavender. At least around here, lavender works to deter deer. We surrounded our crabapple with lavender and sage, and they have never nibbled it. 🌱 #deer #livingwithwildlife
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Here's what's left of the strawberries after they stripped the upper leaves. Doe couldn't bear weight on her left front foot. No obvious injury, but she stayed all day, eating, resting, eating again. She and fawn disappeared that evening and haven't returned. Coyotes in the area. I hope they're OK.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Organic Chinese pink celery (Apium graveolens) today. Sowed directly in ground on April 27th, in the wettest area inside our garden fence, gradually thinned. I've never grown it before, and according to Territorial Seed Co packet, sowing outdoors is not recommended. Hmmm... 🌱 #Bellingham #PNW
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Vigilant doe rests amid wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca) in what used to be our back lawn, while her fawn stops browsing to watch me. "Deer Rest" sign 😊 marks the year-round favorite napping spot, where little is allowed to grow. 🌱 #lawnreplacement #wildlife #nativeplants #PNW
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
And here they are, ready to feed robins and towhees. 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Oregon stonecrop (Sedum oreganum) blooming in pots on our terrace. Thrives on neglect. We also have it growing more naturally in the ground, here and there. Beautiful all year, and deer rarely bother with it. #nativeplants #PNW 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Just a happy sighting in our garden, on what feels like the first real summer day this year. Even I can recognize a swallowtail (Papilio machaon). We do what we can to encourage them--no blow, no spray, unadulterated flowers. That's catmint (Nepeta) btw. #PNW #Bellingham #butterflies 🌱
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
And why we have a berm inside the gate
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
And this is why we don't let visitors prop our garden gate open. 🌱 #nature #rabbits
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
Don't know my butterflies, but isn't this one pretty, flitting amid lavender in morning light? 🌱
Orange butterfly about three inches across, perched on deep purple lavender. Shadows of lavender stalks on sandy soil.
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Barred owl (Strix varia) ~30 feet off our deck. Robins going crazy. While she was nonchalantly nibbling her toes, another barred owl ~8 feet behind her pounced on a squirrel. Struggle ensued. Squirrel may have won. (Makes up for the squirrel I saw plummet out of a tree yesterday.) Still here #birds
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Barbara B. Harrell @bbharrell.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Suddenly, nodding onion (Allium cernuum) on the sunny side of our restored slope is showing its clusters of pink. It spreads aggressively by seed - note this year's sprouts in left foreground. Easily pulled or shaded out, though. Bees like it, deer and rabbits don't. 🌱 #nativeplants #PNW
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