Northwest Native Plant Guilds: How to Design Low-Maintenance Gardens

In this episode of The Evergreen Thumb, host Erin Hoover explores the concept of native plant guilds—groupings of plants that work together to create resilient, low-maintenance, and ecologically beneficial landscapes. Focusing on Washington State’s diverse climates, she explains the layers of a plant guild (from canopy trees to groundcovers and vines), the importance of using native species for supporting local ecosystems, and key design considerations such as plant spacing and microclimates. Erin also shares practical advice for establishing guilds, resources for further learning, and encourages listener engagement and restoration-minded gardening practices.

As a homesteader, Erin has turned her own property into a small, thriving farm. She grows veggies, tends to fruit trees and shrubs, and raises livestock, all while following permaculture principles to keep things as sustainable as possible. Her focus these days is on finding new uses for native plants, figuring out ways to feed her animals from her land, and growing her own food.

When she’s not working on the homestead or recording The Evergreen Thumb, you’ll find Erin out exploring Washington’s mountains, forests, and beaches—always looking for ideas and inspiration to bring back to her garden.

• Washington State Native Plant Guild List
• Burke Herbarium Image Collection
• WNPS Native Plant Directory
• Landscaping in the Pacific Northwest: Native Plants
• Washington State Conservation Commission | SCC
• Washington Shrubsteppe Restoration and Resiliency Initiative
• King County DNRP Environment, Ecology and Conservation Projects
• WSU Regional Wholesale/Native Plant Specialty Nurseries and Seed Sources
  

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Evergreen Thumb, episode 62. Today is all about native plant groupings and pairings. I’m going to talk about the concept of plant guilds, how to design mutually beneficial plant communities using Washington’s native species across a variety of climates within Washington. We have an incredible diversity of climates and plants in the state of Washington, like USDA zones.

[00:00:32] They vary from about 5A to 9B, which is a huge range from rainforests, uh, particularly like on the Olympic Peninsula, to uh, shrubsteppe in the Columbia Basin of Central Eastern Washington, and so I’m going to try to give you some suggestions on different guilds for different climates.

I also want to mention that this idea for this episode came from a listener, and so if you have a suggestion for an episode topic, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at hello@theevergreenthumb.org

What are Plant Guilds?

[00:01:09] So the first thing I’m gonna talk about is what are plant guilds? Plant guilds are groups of plants that, uh, work together each providing different functions. And the concept of plant guilds comes from my training in permaculture design. Each plant in a grouping has a specific function that works either in conjunction with or has more than one use within that grouping.

[00:01:41] Um, some of the benefits of combining these plants can be soil building, pest control, pollinator support, erosion control, and reduced maintenance in permaculture. Typically, plant guilds, uh, also include some food benefit. That’s not necessarily the case with these native plant guilds.

[00:02:04] Maybe you’re asking, “why native plants?”. Native plants are already adapted to our local conditions. So depending on where you live, there is a, a huge variety of plants that thrive in your specific area and in your specific conditions. And those plants support local ecosystems, local wildlife, local pollinators, and the wildlife and the, uh, insects and pollinators are naturally adapted to those plants.

[00:02:38] Another advantage of native plants is that because they’re so well adapted, once they’re established in your garden, they have very low water needs and very low maintenance requirements as a whole. Creating guilds of native plants create resilient landscapes. Again, because they have lower water needs, lower maintenance needs, and they are supporting our native ecosystems.

The Layers of a Native Plant Guild

[00:03:02] The general concept of a guild, or I’ll call ‘em guilds, but think of them as groupings that if you go out in a natural area, you will see a lot of these plants are naturally grouped together because they all fit a niche within that ecosystem. The primary functions of plants within a guild or a grouping start with the canopy layer.

[00:03:27] These are large trees that provide shade, structure, and wildlife habitat. Now, if you live in an urban or suburban community, you may not have room for these canopy-layer trees because generally these are very large overstory trees, and that’s okay. Uh, you can leave these out, and if you have a really small yard, you may need to leave out the subcanopy or understory trees as well.

[00:03:51] You need to adapt these to what works for your space. Subcanopy or understory trees are smaller trees that thrive under a partial canopy, so they like dappled shade or partial sun. And sometimes, uh, if they’re an edge tree typically are on the edge of a habitat. Then they can use, or sometimes tolerate full sun as well.

[00:04:13] A shrub layer. It is a mid-height woody plant. Shrubs can actually vary in size from one or two feet tall to 20 feet tall. So a lot of times they have berries on them, which are good for wildlife, and they’re also good for habitat.

The fourth layer is herbaceous perennials, and these are non-woody flowering plants.

[00:04:38] Uh, they offer seasonal interest, whether it be flowers or color, um, as they dig back seeds and things like that.

The fifth layer is the ground cover layer. And these are low-growing plants that protect the soil. They suppress weeds. They can be food as well. There are a lot of fruit-bearing ground covers, but they help prevent, they work like a living mulch in your garden.

[00:05:05] And then there are two other layers that are optional, uh, in this situation. Typically, in a permaculture guild, these would be great food options, but may not fit in a, uh, an ornamental or in a native plant garden, uh, depending on the region. And those are the root layer. These are plants with roots, bulbs, or corms that provide a function and a benefit in the soil.

[00:05:29] Also a vining layer. These are climbers that can use vertical space, typically flowers, sometimes fruit-bearing, and we do have a number of native vining plants.

Other Considerations for Your Native Plant Guild

Some other considerations, as an adjunct to those layers, are including nitrogen-fixing plants, which improve your soil fertility.

[00:05:54] These can be trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants. They can fit into any of those categories.

And then there’s also, there’s pollinator tractors, so plants that support beneficial insects, typically with flowering.

Some design considerations to take into account are matching these plants to your specific microclimate.

[00:06:17] Even if you live in an area that fits the description that I give for this guild, keep in mind that there are microclimates, and you know, your high temperatures or low temperatures may be slightly different from your surrounding area, which could inhibit the viability of some of these plants.

[00:06:36] Then consider the mature sizing and spacing of these plants because they are specifically adapted to these regions. They could possibly get bigger than you would expect. Um, especially, like I said, the canopy layer trees. These are very large overstory trees and are going to be way too big to fit in a typical urban or suburban garden space.

[00:07:00] Another thing to think about is seasonal interest and succession. So, things like a Ninebark or a Dogwood that, uh, the leaves tend to turn great colors in the fall or the the, the bark has color to it, like a red twig dogwood that adds winter interest. Mix some evergreens with some deciduous shrubs, so that way you have you don’t have just a bunch of sticks all winter long.

[00:07:27] Think about the flowers and the, um, you know, and the succession of how those plants bloom throughout the season so that you can have a succession of blossoms and a succession of benefits to benefit wildlife and pollinators.

And also think about the vertical and horizontal layers.

[00:07:50] Make sure you get a nice assortment in each layer. Your canopy layer is going to vary depending on the size. Like I said, you won’t, maybe you won’t have any, maybe you only have one, maybe you have three Western Red Cedars. You probably have a pretty good-sized front yard. The house I grew up in we had three cedar trees in this nice, big front yard, and we had Salal growing underneath them.

[00:08:14] It was about the only thing that would grow underneath them and, and it was a nice shady area in the summer.

Also, plan for maintenance access. Make sure that you can get to, you know, the center of this garden, whatever it looks like for you, so that you can make sure that you’re able to weed and pull out plants that you don’t want there.

Climate Zones in Washington State

[00:08:39] Okay. Next, I want to talk a little bit about, um, some climate zones. Like I mentioned, we have a wide range of the USDA growing zones from 5A to 9B, but more specifically, Western Washington is primarily a maritime climate with very wet winters and dry summers. And then we have, uh, some areas are wetter than others, especially if you’re in the rainforest or near the rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula or along the coast.

[00:09:09] You’re going to have cooler summers than someone who’s further inland. Then we also have the mountain zone. So, these are the, the Cascade foothills and up into the mountains. These are higher elevation. They have a shorter growing season, and they tend to have heavy snow in the winter for Eastern Washington.

[00:09:33] We have the, the lowlands of Eastern Washington. So these have a more continental climate. They have hot, dry summers and cold winters, and these would be the areas of the Far East.

[00:09:44] We have the Columbia Basin, which is a very arid, that’s the shrubsteppe I was talking about earlier. It’s a very arid climate with the temperature extremes, uh, even more so than the Eastern Washington lowlands.

Native Plant Guilds for the Different Washington Climate Zones

So, I have come up with six different guilds, three in Western Washington and three in Eastern Washington.

[00:10:06] Today I’m only going to cover two guilds, specifically one for Western Washington, one for Eastern Washington, because it could probably take me a couple hours to go through all six guilds in depth. But I will have a download available on our website that has a complete plant list for all six guilds and

[00:10:27] We’ll also include, uh, links to the Burkes’ database with pictures that shows what areas of the state these plants are native to. So, I’m going to describe kind of the, the general concept of the guild, the climate it is best suited to, and then we’ll go through each of the layers and, and some of the suggested plants, these plants that I’m suggesting are not a hard and fast rule.

[00:10:54] There are, in many cases, there are going to be many other options, uh, that you could include in this guild, and I would encourage you to find some uh, more ideas on other plants that you might, uh, like to include.

A Native Plant Guild for Western Washington:

The first guild for Western Washington is what I’m calling a Rainforest Edge Guild, and this is the Puget Sound Lowlands and the Olympic Peninsula area.

[00:11:22] And the site is going to be shade with moist, but well-drained soil. This could be on the coastal area. These are areas that are not going to get too hot in the summer. This would be anywhere in the Puget Sound Basin that’s close to the water.

The canopy layer suggestions are the Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata.

[00:11:45] If you’ve lived in Western Washington, you know, you’re probably very familiar with these. They’re a very large, slow-growing tree. They are evergreen, and they offer a lot of wildlife shelter.

The second suggestion is a Bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum, and this is a very large deciduous shade tree. The leaves tend to get, uh, turn a beautiful yellow color or in the fall, but again, it is a very large tree.

[00:12:10] For the subcanopy, the, uh, recommendations are Cascara, which is, uh, Rhamnus purshiana, which is a, a small tree, probably 20, 25 feet tall. I actually like this tree um, in this early summer, late spring, when they’re in bloom, it is just alive with bees pollinating the, these trees. You can hear the tree buzzing. Uh, there was, there are so many bees, and because of that, the berries that it produces are an important food for birds in the summer.

[00:12:42] Uh, the second sub canopy suggestion is Vine maple, which is Acer circinatum. It is a multistemmed maple tree that has fantastic fall color, and it does tolerate deep shade very well.

Uh, Cascara actually, um, can tolerate full sun. So, you know, those are kind of different extremes, and they both, you know, can take the partial shade or partial sun pretty well.

[00:13:13] The shrub layer. I have, uh, four different suggestions depending on the amount of shade.

Uh, the first is a Red flowering current, uh, Ribes sanguineum, and one of, it’s one of the earliest blooming shrubs in Western Washington that I’m aware of. Hummingbirds love it. There are these nice, uh, just like droops of pink and white flowers. They’re very pretty. Um, it’s very, uh, sun-tolerant.

[00:13:37] The next one is Pacific ninebark. It’s Physocarpus capitatus, and it has this great peeling bark, this exfoliating bark that adds a lot of, uh, interest, uh, to the shrub beyond, uh, its leaves and flowers. It has great compound flowers that pollinators love, typically white.

[00:14:06] Another option is a red or blue Elderberry, Sambucus racemosa, or I think the other one is Sambucus nigra. Depending on where you’re at, some of the blue elderberries are a little more shade-tolerant. Whereas red elderberries prefer more sun. But the berries are great for the birds, and Red elderberry specifically is a nitrogen fixer.

[00:14:34] So that is a great way to make sure you’re keeping some of that nitrogen in your soil.

And then the fourth shrub layer is Salal, Gaultheria shallon, which is a beautiful broadleaf evergreen. It has berries that the birds love and, but it also can be very dense. Its size can vary some depending on how much sun it gets.

[00:14:59] So if it’s on an edge that gets a lot of sun, it’s gonna stay more compact and small, and if it’s deeper into the shade, it’s going to get a little bit bigger and leggier as it tries to get a little bit of sun. It really like some sun.
So, the next layer is the herbaceous perennials, and I have three suggestions for this one.

[00:15:24] These are all fairly shade-adapted. And, uh, so the first one is Red Columbine, Aquilegia Formosa, and that is a favorite of hummingbirds. It’s got the nice deep flower, and it self-sows readily, so you don’t have to constantly buy more and re-sow every year.

Another nice one is False Solomon’s seal, Maianthemum racemosum. It has these nice arcing stems with white flowers, and it’s a fairly good-sized leaf.

[00:15:52] And then the last one is Bleeding Heart, Dicentra formosa, and it likes deep shade. Put it on the north edge, and uh, it has little pink to purpleish flowers. Heart-shaped flowers, which is why it’s called bleeding heart.

And then we move on to ground covers.

[00:16:18] One great, uh, evergreen ground cover is Sword fern, Polystichum munitum. Uh, it’s, like I said, it’s evergreen, it’s got great texture. It’s deer resistant, so it’s great if, uh, you in areas where deer is, um, can be a problem.

Let’s see, what else? Vanilla leaf, Achlys triphylla. I’m guessing at a lot of the pronunciations on these because some, most of ‘em I’ve never heard pronounced, so if you think I’m butchering them, that’s okay.

[00:16:49] The, uh, vanilla leaf has a really nice three-lobed leaf, and when it dries, it actually smells like vanilla, and it has white spikes of flowers. They’re very pretty, but very understated, and it spreads by rhizomes. So that one is great for sticking around and slowly spreading.

Wild ginger. Asarum canadense is a fragrant ground cover. It’s great for deep shade.

[00:17:16] And then finally, Foamflower. Tiarella cordifolia is a delicate white flour that spikes, kind of it flowers in early spring, and again, it spreads by runners and it’s best for moist shade. So if you’ve got soil that’s not swampy really, but that stays good and moist because it’s in deep shade. Um, that’s a good option.

[00:17:41] And then this guild has a binding layer of, of Orange Honeysuckle, Lonicera ciliosa, which is a great one for hummingbirds. It has these red-orange blossoms, you know, it’ll climb a maple or a cascara or a fence. I remember seeing one, I think it’s Lake Sylvia State Park has, there’s a honeysuckle that grows at the edge of the bridge, and it would kind of curl along the edge of the bridge.

[00:18:10] That covers all the layers of the Rainforest Edge Guild. And the primary function of this guild is to create a multi-layered woodland edge with year-round interest, and it supports diverse wildlife, and it has minimal watering needs after establishment.

[00:18:29] For some of those really deep shade, you’re going to need a pretty dense canopy, so you’re going to need a good number of subcanopy trees or canopy trees. So those deep shade ones might be best if you have a larger space to fill.

A Native Plant Guild for Eastern Washington:

The second guild I’m going to talk about today is an Eastern Washington Guild that I call the Shrubsteppe Guild.

[00:18:49] This guild covers areas like the Columbia Basin, the Yakima Valley, and the Wenatchee area. The ideal site has full sun, dry alkaline soil, and temperature extremes.

The canopy tree for this guild, uh, is pretty typical of that area, is the Ponderosa pine, Pinus ponderosa. This is the iconic drought-adapted pine tree of Central and much of Eastern Washington.

[00:19:19] And this you want scattered as a canopy tree, Savannah style. Savannah style means that there is a lot of openness to the canopy. There’s a lot of space between the trees to allow in plenty of sunlight, and it is not a densely planted canopy.

The subcanopy for this is Western juniper, Juniperus occidentalis. It has a great evergreen structure. It has berries for birds, and it’s just a, an all-around versatile subcanopy layer.

[00:19:47] For the shrub layer, we have four different suggestions, and as I’ve mentioned before, uh.

You can trade any of these out for a different shrub that is better suited to your area or that you find more attractive. But I would recommend doing research to make sure you’ve got the best fit for, uh, the location of your garden.

[00:20:12] The first one is Big sagebrush, which is Artemisia tridentata, and it is a larger aromatic shrub that provides critical wildlife habitat.

The next one is Antelope bitterbrush, which is Purshia tridentata.

[00:20:38] It is a nitrogen fixture and is great wildlife browse. So if you have issues with large wildlife browsing, such as deer or elk or moose, I would recommend possibly finding something different. Otherwise, browse will be for smaller animals that will eat the leaves and the uh, the branches.

The next one is Rabbit brush, Ericameria nauseosa. It has gold flowers late in the season and is a pollinator haven.

[00:21:10] Curl Leaf Mountain Mahogany is the fourth shrub layer suggestion, and that is Cercocarpus ledifolius. It is another nitrogen fixer, so it would be a great option instead of bitterbrush. Uh, you don’t have to have four shrubs. These are just four different options. Again, is evergreen as well, the mahogany.

[00:21:36] For herbaceous perennials, we have Arrowleaf balsamroot, which is Balsamorhiza sagittata. It has a nice mounding habit with spectacular spring sunflowers. Bright golden yellow.

And then the Penstemon species. There are several, and these have the telltale tubular flowers that hummingbirds just love. So that is a great hummingbird attractor for your garden.

[00:22:06] Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, is a very tough pollinator plant. It has a nice bright white compound flower, and the foliage is very lacy, has it’s very lacy, and has little fronds of those lacy leaves, almost fern-like, but much more delicate and petite, so it adds great texture to a garden amidst all those broadleaf plants.

[00:22:44] Desert parsley, lomatium species. Uh, offers early spring blooms and is considered an important native food.

And one difference of this guild to the other one I talked about is that it incorporates grasses as part of the ground cover layer. And so the, for the shrubsteppe, we have Bluebunch wheatgrass, which is Pseudoroegneria spicata, which is, uh, a native bunch grass that also acts as a great soil stabilizer.

[00:23:11] Sandberg’s Bluegrass, Poa secunda, is a lower-growing grass, and then Phlox is a low-growing ground cover that has nice mats of colorful spring blossoms.

This guild functions to recreate the native shrubsteppe. It’s incredibly drought-tolerant. It supports sage-dependent species. It prevents erosion and requires minimal to no irrigation thought.

Western Washington: The Gary Oak Savannah Native Plant Guild Overview

[00:23:38] I thought I’d just give you an overview since I don’t have time to go through all six guilds in depth, uh, some of the other guilds. The second Western Washington Guild is the Gary Oak Savannah, and this is kind of an adjunct to the Gary Oak Camas Prairie ecosystem.

[00:24:05] The climate of this guild is for south-facing slopes in rain shadow areas such as the San Juans or Sequim, as well as most of southwestern Washington, south of Puget Sound. There’s a lot of, uh, native prairie and native oak savannah, uh, traditionally in that area. And of course, the canopy is Oregon White Oak, Quercus garryana.

[00:24:32] Um, there’s some of the other highlighted plants would be, uh, Pacific Crabapple, Serviceberry, Camas. That is a keystone of the oak savannah.

Roemer’s Fescue is a primary savannah bunch grass that is another option. And this guild functions to recreate the authentic oak savannah ecosystem with an open canopy.

[00:24:58] So again, you want, like I said, with the pine trees, you don’t want a closed canopy. You want it to be open. You want there to be significant space between each of your canopy or subcanopy trees that provide dappled shade with sunny gaps. It’s extremely drought-tolerant once it’s established, it supports oak-dependent species, including specialist butterflies like Taylor’s checkerspot.

[00:25:22] It creates a mosaic of sun and shade microclimates with spectacular spring bulbs. Again, the Camas; it’s more versatile for residential gardens than a pure prairie while maintaining ecological integrity. The Gary oak savannah and Oak prairie are the Pacific Northwest’s most endangered ecosystem, with less of 5% of the original, uh, area remaining.

Eastern Washington: The Palouse Prairie Native Plant Guild Overview

[00:25:47] So the second Eastern Washington Guild I was going to talk about is the Palouse Prairie Guild, and this is for far eastern Washington, of course, the Palouse region. Up into the Spokane area, the site has, has full sun, deeper soils, cold winters, but more precipitation than the Columbia basin. And again, you’ve got your, uh, canopy of a Ponderosa pine with other layers, uh, including Red Stem Ceanothus, wild Bergamot, Idaho Fescue.

[00:26:14] This guild functions to recreate the rolling Palouse prairie with more moisture than the shrub step ecosystem. It supports diverse grassland birds and pollinators and handles temperature extremes of -20 to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and creates a classic American prairie aesthetic with seasonal drama.

Western Washington: The Mountain Meadow Native Plant Guild Overview

[00:26:41] The last Western Washington Guild is the mountain meadow, and this would be the Cascade foothills at mountain valleys of 3000 to 5,000 feet with sun to part shade and well-drained and cold hardy. Um, this tends to have smaller trees like Quaking aspen. Um, other plants include Salmonberry, Wild Strawberry, Fireweed, and this handles cold temperatures.

[00:27:06] And the shorter growing season provides wildlife forage, beautiful seasonal transitions, and supports pollinators during the brief mountain summer.

Eastern Washington: The Riparian Wetland Native Plant Guild Overview

Finally, the third, but Eastern Washington Guild is the Riparian Wetland Guild, and this is stream corridors, wetland edges across eastern Washington that are in full sun to part shade.

[00:27:30] They’re moist to seasonally wet soil and tolerate flooding. When I see, think of this, I think of in central Washington, the banks of Crab Creek, uh, which is a major irrigation waterway, and there are a lot of trees like Black cottonwood and Quaking aspen, Willows, Alders, that all help to stabilize the spring banks.

[00:27:55] Shrubs like Black hawthorn and Pacific ninebark, uh, Stream violet, Columbine, Rushes all help to stabilize those wet areas and create lots of, uh, interest as well.

The function of this guild is to stabilize stream banks and wetland edges, filters water, provides critical wildlife habitat, and migration corridors.

[00:28:19] It also helps to create a cool microclimate in the hot Eastern Washington areas and supports riparian-dependent species.

How to Start Your Guild

So just really quickly, some thoughts about implementing your guild. Start with your canopy layer, get that established, and then fill in with some shrubs and perennials. Mulch heavily and water well the first year to get it well established.

[00:28:47] In year two, you can start filling in with more herbaceous perennials. Make sure you allow some self-seeding. Fill in the gaps with ground covers. Add nitrogen fixers if it seems to be slow to start. But try not to be impatient because these are native plants and they grow at the rate that they grow. One of the benefits is that the maintenance is much lower than conventional landscapes once they’re established.

[00:29:13] Uh, and all it really needs from you is regular mulching, selective weeding, and a little bit of pruning. And with that pruning, you can use the chop and drop method for nutrient cycling, which means if as long as the what you’re pruning is not diseased can chop it up into smaller pieces and it just becomes part of the mulch.

Resources

[00:29:33] A few resources to mention, again, the Burke Herbarium Image Collection is a fantastic resource when you look up the plant, it shows a map of Washington, and uh, with all the different counties that it has been found, there are some great pictures of the plants. It talks about the habitat, a general description, when it flowers, and what type of pollinators are attracted to it.

[00:29:59] You know, there’s tons and tons of information about each and every one of these plants. On the Burke Herbarium Image Collection, they also have an identification key on their website as well.

Uh, Washington Native Plant Society and each region has a more specialized local society that is more in tune with the plants that are native to your specific region.

[00:30:27] Don’t forget to check out local native plant nurseries. I know there are several all over the state and possibly in Idaho and Oregon. That would be good resources as well.

Uh, another option is to visit regional restoration projects. I know there are several with the, the Oak savannah and Oak prairie in southwest Washington, and I’m sure there are more throughout in the different ecosystems throughout the state.

[00:30:56] Go out into natural areas in your region for inspiration if you like, take a book. If it’s a place where your phone will work, you can key out some of the plants that you find that you’re interested in, so you can identify them and then buy them from a local native plant nursery. But please do not ever dig or harvest plants in natural areas without permission, as you could be damaging delicate habitats.

Closing Thoughts on Native Plant Guilds

[00:31:22] So just some closing takeaways. Plant guilds work with nature, not against it. Native plants create resilient wildlife supporting landscapes. Washington’s climate diversity offers some exciting design opportunities when you approach native plants with intentionality, and it improves our plant biodiversity, it decreases the need for supplemental watering.

[00:31:49] And every plant guild you create becomes a small restoration project.

So with that in mind. I’d love to hear about what struck you most about the idea of a native plant guild and how you maybe you intend to implement this in your garden. You can always email me at hello@theevergreenthumb.org.

[00:32:16] Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram. We always love to hear from you, and like I mentioned before, the idea for this episode came from a listener. So if you have ideas on or if there is something that you really wanna hear more about, again email me, connect with me on social media. There’s a form on our website, theevergreenthumb.org, that you can submit, and it will send me an email. But we would really like to hear from you. Thanks for listening.

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