Native Plants for Your Garden: Propagation & Planting
Plant knowledge and identification are important skills for forest defense!
Join Rachel Freifelder of Handmade Gardens Regenerative Consulting at Blueberry Learning Farm for a hands-on workshop designed to introduce you to some of our region’s native plants and how to grow them in your own garden.
At Blueberry Learning Farm, 120+ species of plants native to our bioregion coexist with common and uncommon species cultivated worldwide for food and medicine. The farm’s mission is to share knowledge, foodm and land access with the community.
In this workshop, you’ll learn techniques for vegetative propagation from cuttings and root divisions, and best practices for transplanting. We will also discuss the needs, size and appearance of each species, to help you choose planting locations.
We’ll prioritize plants that
- are easy to grow
- have food or medicinal value to humans, and also
- provide food and habitat for the more than human world.
Take home some plants for your own garden. Surplus plants will be donated to school gardens and Indigenous food sovereignty projects.
Species we will cover may include:
- Nettles are a delicious, nutritious wild food and medicine. In the woods, they can be over harvested.
- Oregon grape is a versatile, safe medicine, has edible berries, and its honey scented flowers are a favorite for bees.
- Field checkermallow has evergreen leaves edible by humans; its flowers feed endangered butterflies. Its untended population has shrunk because native habitat, seasonal wetlands in the Willamette Valley, has been converted to farmland and cities.
- Woodland strawberry has delicious berries and thrives in both sun and shade.
- Yarrow is a safe and effective cold medicine and feeds a wide variety of pollinators.
- Osoberry has edible berries, and flowers in January when pollinators are hungry.
Blueberry Learning Farm is a labor of love, receiving no outside funding except for small individual donations. Rachel and other residents of Blueberry are creating relationships with Indigenous neighbors at Mamook Tokatee to offer food and land access. More about classes at handmadegardenspdx.com/classes/
Date: December 13, 2025
Time: 1-3:30 pm
Location: 4446 NE Going St., Portland, OR 97218. Bus #75 is a 5-minute walk. Bicycles may be brought onsite. If you prefer to drive, please carpool!
Bring: Warm clothes that can get dirty; raincoat; warm hat; gloves; water bottle. If you have them, please also bring: trowel, digging knife, hand pruners, nursery pots. We will have some to share as well.
Access: This is a nearly flat urban site. Most of the hands-on activities will be on the ground, involving kneeling or crouching. Some chairs are available; we will be moving around the gardens. There is access to a bathroom. Two steps up to enter house.
If heavy snow/ice/temperature below 20 degrees is forecast we will cancel/reschedule. Heavy rain may cancel, light rain we will proceed.
Questions: handmadegardenspdx@gmail.com