Greenbelt Restoration Project: Our First Planting Season is Over

The planting season in Seattle’s parklands starts when the autumn rains begin and ends in mid-March. The reason for planting during those months is that it gives the plants time to root before they have to deal with the dry summer months. During our first planting season, we have planted 55 trees and 530 shrubs and ground covers.

All of the new plants are native to the Pacific Northwest. This chart lists the types of plants we planted during our first season.

I love watching the plants grow. Some have doubled or tripled in size since we planted them. Almost all of them have leaves now and some even have flowers.

Oregon Grape

Red Flowering Currant

Roemer’s Fescue

Salmonberry

Wild Ginger

Fringecup

Orange Honeysuckle

Snowberry

Oceanspray

There are plants emerging from the ground that are a complete surprise. One day, I noticed long stalks scattered around one area.

Later, I was told they are Bracken ferns. I found some photos of Bracken ferns on Pixabay.

We are going to have a LOT of Bracken ferns in that area. I hope they get along with the new plants.

When I was outside taking photos today, a tiny hummingbird came within two feet of me. It is going to be an exciting spring and summer. I hope I see some butterflies too!

Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: April 8, 2018

April 8 was our first work party of Spring Quarter. I so love this forest restoration work and I love working with the University of Washington Introduction to Environmental Science students and, of course, anyone else who joins us. It had only been three weeks since our last work party but it felt a lot longer than that to me. I was eager and ready.

There was a lot of rain the week leading up to the event. The weather forecast for that day was breezy weather and rain but we lucked out. It rained as I was setting up, but there was none during the work party. Twenty-three students braved the forecast and came ready to work. Three GreenFriends members served as team leaders.

We split into two teams for the first part of the event. The larger group moved 1250 sq. ft. of burlap from the street into different sections of the restoration site. The burlap is used to cover areas we have cleared of invasive plants such as blackberry and ivy vines. The burlap helps to reduce weed growth and prevent erosion. Having it located onsite gives us easier access to it.

(Click on the galleries to enlarge the photos.)

After all the burlap had been moved, the same group starting filling buckets with wood chips. Wood chips are spread around each plant and also throughout the planting areas. The wood chips serve as mulch, thereby holding in water, making it more likely the plants will survive during the dry summer months. Both the wood chips and the burlap will eventually decompose and enrich the soil.

Wood chip pile

Filled buckets

The second group focused on weeding; in this case searching for and removing ivy and blackberry vines. These vines have smothered and killed most of the trees and shrubs in this section of the Greenbelt and we need to prevent them from regrowing so that they don’t destroy all of the native trees, shrubs and ground covers we’ve planted since October.

Midway through the work party we took a snack break…..

and then everyone participated in a bucket brigade. We sent the buckets we had previously filled with wood chips down the line and then started filling more. Once each bucket reached the end of the line the wood chips were poured around newly planted shrubs, and then throughout the planting area.

We were able to spread the mulch through three different planting areas. Below are photos of two of them.

Once again, we had accomplished so much during the three hour work party and I think everyone had enjoyed working together. I know I did!

Wordless Wednesday

The Beauty of Nature

Today I was walking near a pile of debris…

as I was walking up and down a slope to place burlap on areas that we are going to cover with wood chip mulch on Sunday. There is a shrub planted every place you see the blue and white checkered tape. Some of the plants haven’t been marked yet.

On one trip up the slope, a log caught my eye. I took a closer look at it when I walked back down.

How wondrous and beautiful nature is.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Photo Challenge: Story

Last week’s Weekly Photo Challenge was to tell a story with photos. What a perfect way for me to share photos of one of our Greenbelt Restoration Site’s Oregon Grape plants.

February 3

February 10

March 20

March 26

Clearly this is a story that will have future developments!

(The first picture was taken by a neighbor, Marine Kleven, who sometimes take photos during our work parties.)

Surviving Adversity

I had attempted to clear parts of the Greenbelt lot behind my house numerous times over the years, long before our current GreenFriends Greenbelt restoration project began. One day in March 2015, when Ramana and I were doing some clearing, we saw a glimpse of yellow among all of the invasive blackberry and ivy vines.

It seemed likely that the flowers were daffodils and I was determined to free them from their prison. I picked up my shears and headed towards them. Because of the uneven, sloped ground, and the invasive plants, I needed to create a path of twists and turns.

Once I arrived at my destination, I was gifted with some beautiful sights.

We started the GreenFriends Greenbelt Restoration project in September of 2016. When I saw the daffodils coming up in March 2017, I put some bright blue ribbon around them to decrease the likelihood of them being trampled. (The pile to the right of the daffodils is cut bamboo stacked on a drying rack.)

It may be my imagination, but when I saw the daffodils this year (March 2018) it seemed to me that they were more beautiful than ever before and had a sense of lightness and freedom.

By the time the daffodils emerge in March 2019, their surroundings will be clear of debris. I believe I will always view these flowers with a sense of respect and honor. Like ferns, they have survived being covered with blackberry and ivy vines for thirty or more years and are a striking example of living through adversity and thriving.

Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: March 17, 2018

On March 17, thirteen hardy volunteers gathered to spread wood chips in areas that had been planted during the February 26 work party. The wood chip mulch will hold in moisture, reduce weed growth and enrich the soil.

Two neighborhood parents brought their children for part of the event. I felt moved when I realized that this forest may become important to these children as they grow up.

Most of the group had worked on this restoration project before, but for some it was their first time on the property. There was also a nice mix of GreenFriends members, neighbors and friends.

We didn’t have enough participants to do the traditional type of bucket brigade; i.e., handing buckets from person to person down a long line of people. Instead, everyone filled buckets for a short period of time and then most volunteers began to carry them to their destination on the other end of the site. Later on, the system changed again. At that point, part of the group carried the buckets the first half of the way, and then left them for others to carry to the planting areas. Once the buckets of wood chips reached a planting area, someone poured the chips onto the burlap.

My neighbor Christine was in two of my favorite photos from this work party. I took the first one during a time when she and I were filling buckets. At one point, she climbed to the top of the eight or nine-foot pile of wood chips and filled her bucket from there!

If you look closely you may be able to see steam rising from the wood chips. It reminded me of the steam I’ve seen coming from decomposing compost piles whenever I visit the compost center at Amma’s ashram in Amritapuri, India.

Marine took the other photo when Christine was talking with one of our young visitors.

We accomplished more than I thought was possible; spreading wood chips throughout three large planting areas and several small ones. The transformation in the look of the land was remarkable.

At the beginning of February 2018, the property looked like this:

During the first three weeks in February, work party participants removed blackberry root balls and ivy from the land. On February 26, another group planted trees, shrubs and ground covers, and placed burlap and two buckets of wood chips around each plant. By the end of that work party, this is what the land looked like:

And this was the beautiful sight that greeted my eyes at the end of the March 17th work party:

We have many more wood chips to spread. It is gratifying to know that the work we are doing now will give the plants a better chance of surviving the summer, a season when rainfall may be minimal.

A Weekend of Gifts

Last weekend, was quite a weekend. I felt like I received one gift after another. They weren’t life challenges that many of us often refer to as “another gift from the universe.” While I believe even those gifts are “for my own good” and should be respected, that phrase is often said with an eye roll and a bit of sarcasm. The gifts I’m talking about in this post are the “feel good” kind of gifts.

The weekend series started when I looked at my Green Seattle Partnership Forest Steward’s handbook and discovered that all of our plants for the season were supposed to have been planted by March 1. I thought I had until sometime in April. That wasn’t the gift I am talking about either, although I am sure glad I found out about my error when I did.

The first “feel good” gifts came when I wrote my friends Sarva and Gopika and asked if they would help me plant the remainder of the plants… and they both said yes. Sarva was able to set a time for Saturday but Gopika couldn’t come until Sunday. It was my hope that Sarva and I would finish the planting on Saturday so Gopika and I could focus on the other work that needs to be completed before our upcoming March 17 work party.

On Saturday, Sarva and I planted 40 shrubs and 6 ground covers. We also placed burlap around most of the newly planted items. By the end, we were both exhausted, but we had finished the planting!

The next day, Gopika and I finished 1) writing the name of each plant on a popsicle stick and putting in the ground near the plant, 2) making sure a blue and white checkered tape and a flower that had been blessed during a ritual had been placed on or near every plant and 3) removing the pink flags that had marked the spot where the shrub or ground cover was to be planted. (The blue and white tape means that the item was planted during the 2017-2018 planting season.)

Our next step will be to cover all of the exposed burlap with wood chip mulch on March 17.

I received the second set of gifts when I kept an appointment with my auto mechanic. He was at the front counter talking with friends when I arrived. One of the friends had an interesting item in his hand. I asked if it was for a steering wheel and he said yes. A few minutes later he gave it to me, saying he would put it on the wheel. I wasn’t sure I wanted it, but it felt right to accept it, so I did. The friends had trouble stretching it onto the wheel but they finally got it on.

I had mixed feelings about the gift. It seemed gaudy and I don’t like drawing attention to myself. And as I drove with it on the wheel, I also became concerned that it added too much width to the steering wheel to be comfortable. During the days that followed, I discovered that the cover makes it easier to spot my car from a distance and it is so nice to not have to touch a cold wheel when I get into the car during freezing temperatures. I think I will get used to this new form of comfort.

After my mechanic replaced my brake light, he surprised me by saying there would be no charge. And another auto problem I was having when I had made the appointment on Friday, resolved before I got there. From my perspective, both of those experiences were also gifts.

The third set of gifts started when my neighbor Jason notified me on Friday that a colleague of his had rescued a Douglas Fir tree from a rockery several years back; the tree was now eight-feet tall. She had asked him if he knew of a place where it could be planted. He asked if we could plant it in the Greenbelt restoration site.

We’ve planted so many trees this year that I wasn’t sure I would have a place for it. When I looked around though, I saw a spot in the middle of a grove of maple trees. Those trees are very old and we’ve been focusing on planting trees that will eventually replace them.

Jason said he would bring the tree to the site on Sunday. I considered asking another neighbor, John, to help plant it, but I didn’t do it. As I walked towards the Greenbelt to meet Jason, John walked out of his house. I asked if he would help with the planting and he said yes.

This weekend, I felt as if I had received gifts from Sarva, Gopika, Jason, Jason’s friend, John, my mechanic, the mechanics friends, as well as feel good gifts from “the universe”. My weekend had been both fulfilling and joyful.

(I’m laughing. Minutes after I finished writing this post, I received a notice that went out to the Forest Stewards saying that we can have extra plants if we want them! I’m taking that as another gift as well as an acknowledgement that it was not a problem that I didn’t have everything planted by March 1. Now I need to decide if I want to ask if more sword ferns are available. I believe we have enough of everything else for this planting season, but having more ferns might be nice.)