holyoutlaw

#GivingTuesday is a chance to recognize volunteers and change makers at every level, from people working nationally to people working in your neighborhood. Today we ask you to recognize Friends of North Beach Park by making a tax-deductible donation to the Seattle Parks Foundation. Every dollar donated is a strong gesture of support for our efforts. All the money goes directly to the restoration of North Beach Park.

Why should you support Friends of North Beach Park? Here are a few reasons:

By the end of the planting season we’ll have planted well over a thousand plants. We’ve logged hundreds and hundreds of volunteer hours, and moved into new areas of restoration while maintaining previously-restored areas. We started working in the South Plateau again, and will do planting there in January. We’ve worked closely with Parks Department, Forterra, Seattle Public Utilities, and other agencies. We’ve had students from Seattle Pacific University, North Seattle College, Edmonds Community College, and the University of Washington volunteer and study in the park. We’ve had ten work parties, large and small — from more than 20 people to just three. In addition, three lead forest stewards work in the park four Mondays out of five.

We tabled at “Art in the Garden” again and, as ever, enjoyed the weather, food, and the great chance to meet neighbors of the park.

The work of Friends of North Beach Park was recognized by Groundswell NW in bestowing Luke McGuff one of two “Local Hero” awards, for work in sustaining and improving NW Seattle open space. We were also recognized by the Washington Native Plant Society in awarding us a Stewardship Grant of $500, which we have used for purchase of bare-root plants. Last but not least, Luke completed his Master of Environmental Horticulture program at the University of Washington, which resulted in a Restoration Management Plan being posted here chapter by chapter.

All of this work is accomplished by volunteer labor — hundreds, if not thousands, of hours a year. But even so, this work needs money — for purchase of plants, tools, and materials. We’re a small organization, so even a small donation will have a large impact.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

The October work party for Friends of North Beach Park was, once again, a tremendous success. The weather cooperated: it was raining in the morning, but during the work party itself, there were even occasional sunbreaks. It didn’t start raining again until we were safely back home.

We were joined this time by about eleven volunteers from the North Seattle College iCARE program. The students worked hard and well and with the guidance of the forest stewards, we got 450 plants into the ground, which were:

Those are all wetland obligate (they have to live in a wetland) or facultative wetland plants (they prefer wetland environments, but about a third of the time they can be found in drier spots). The Carex amplifolia and Glyceria elata have been seen growing in isolated patches in North Beach Park, but the C. stipata has not been seen in the park at all. The other three have been planted during restoration in small quantities. None of the plants have been seen growing or have been planted near where they were planted Saturday, which will make monitoring of the project in the spring and summer easy.

Julie sorted them into five buckets, 10 or 20 per bucket.

The five buckets were to correspond with five areas for receiving the plants. All the plants got put in where they were intended, and we had some extras to spread around.

Above, we see Loren (bareheaded, in black jacket to the left) and Drexie (kneeling in purple jacket to the right) leading a group of the North Seattle students in planting. They’re working in a seep that wasn’t in the original planting plan, but I was really glad to see get something put into it.

The photo above shows Doug leading other students in planting. They’re standing on “duckboards,” a technical term for sheets of plywood (in this case, just particle board) that you can pick up and move around to avoid churning up the soil of a wetland and breaking the structure. The leaf-fall makes it a little less obvious, but the area they’re about to work in is bare soil, the result of a new shift in the water flow.

Everything went smoothly enough that we were actually done early. Here’s the group picture:

Doug had gone back into the park to plant one straggler. In the back we see Morry on the left, with Drexie, Loren, and Tad in the back center. Julie is kneeling in the front. Everyone else is from North Seattle.

These plants were purchased as partial fulfillment of a stewardship grant from the Central Puget Sound chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society. As I said above, these are all plants that are under-represented in North Beach Park or have not yet been observed growing there. Planting them in such great quantities will greatly increase the ecological diversity of North Beach Park at the herbaceous level, and will help stabilize the seeps against erosion.

As usual, there are a few more pictures on Flickr. And there are even some pictures on Facebook, posted by the iCare coordinator.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.