About

Specimen.garden is a living catalog of plants grown in Pullman, Washington, a small university town on the Palouse.

The collection spans houseplants, cold-hardy garden specimens, and greenhouse plants. Profiles are field notes in the truest sense: observations, acquisition records, and growing notes accumulated over time. The catalog grows as the collection does.

Growing Conditions

Zone 6b. Pullman sits in the inland Palouse, east of the Cascades, where the climate is continental rather than maritime. It bears little resemblance to Seattle's mild, rainy winters.

Winters dip to 0–15°F most years, with occasional cold snaps reaching -10°F or colder. Snow is reliable from December through February, and hard frosts arrive as early as October.

Summers run hot and dry — highs regularly reach 90–100°F in July and August, with low humidity and little rainfall. Irrigation is essential for anything in the ground.

Annual precipitation hovers around 18–22 inches, most of it falling October through May.

Soil is the Palouse's standout feature: deep loess, a wind-deposited silt that can run hundreds of feet deep in places. It's exceptionally fertile and free-draining, slightly alkaline (pH 7–8), and prone to crusting when dry. Amendments help, but the underlying tilth is genuinely good.

Local

Pullman is home to Washington State University, whose agricultural college has a long track record in plant breeding and horticultural research. Several apple varieties and other cultivars have come out of WSU programs over the years, and the local cooperative extension remains a practical resource for Palouse-specific growing questions.