"Vertical Garden at New Restroom Facility" Six Corners Off The Beaten Path Tip by glabah

The good news is that the old pit toilets that once served as the point of relief for the refuge have been removed and replaced with actual flush toilets.

The better news is that the restroom facility also has parts of it that are part of educational efforts at the refuge. The most visible of these is the "vertical garden" that has been planted to illustrate what can be done with plants native to Oregon, when the only space you have available is a wall.

Vertical gardens have developed a small following here in the northwest, where they have been used to make concrete walls more attractive, and slow down the speed of water draining off of roof downspouts.

This version on the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge uses native plants, even some that you might not expect to be good in a vertical garden. For example, Oregon Grape is normally a fairly good sized shrub, but here it is only a wall covering.

Quite a number of plants have been used in the vertical garden, in the hopes that the variety of colors will illustrate that these do not have to be boring or plain spaces either. What can be done in a horizontal garden with interesting intermixing of plant species can also be done in a vertical garden.

Each of the plants are labeled with their common and latin names, so that it is possible to know the exact plant species that was used in the creation of this living wall.

Website: http://www.fws.gov/tualatinriver/