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PHOTOS BY Janet Jansen |
They have gathered at a 5-acre tract near Graham on a Saturday morning for a lifesaving rescue mission.
Volunteers with the Native Plant Salvage Alliance are here to save trillium, fawn lilies, Indian plum and other Western Washington native species before the bulldozers arrive.
The wooded site is scheduled to become the new home of the Pioneer Valley Baptist Church. But before development begins, the church has granted permission for volunteers to dig up native species that can then be transplanted elsewhere. On this Saturday, they will dig an estimated 1,200 plants.
Most will be used for restoration projects in parks, for erosion control projects and on other public lands. Volunteers are also allowed to take a small portion of the plants with them for their home gardens.
“We like digging in the dirt,” says volunteer Melissa Rathbun of Gig Harbor. “We don’t care if it’s raining.”
Her mother, Tina Taylor, explains that “fall is a good time of the year to dig if you want to be successful. The plants are going dormant.”
“They dig for me for the first hour or two,” says Anna Thurston, coordinator of the Native Plant Salvage Alliance. “Then they can dig for themselves. The payoff is that they can take some home.”
The alliance, funded with grants from Pierce County and the City of Tacoma, is on a mission to salvage the region’s natural legacy, one seedling at a time.
“We’re trying to beat the bulldozers,” says Thurston.
At sites like the one in Graham, where signs advertising new housing developments sprout along roadsides like mushrooms, it’s only a matter of time before open spaces are developed. But the generosity of landowners in communities undergoing development makes the plant salvage operation possible.
Pioneer Valley Baptist Church member Albert Styers calls himself a naturalist and a “native plant wannabe.” He asked the congregation to allow the plant salvage operation.
“The church gave me its blessing to do it, and I contacted Anna,” he says.
The plants saved by the alliance help bring a natural balance to prairie, stream bank and wetland habitats in Pierce County. Already, some plants from the Graham site have been distributed to Oak Tree Park and Point Defiance Park in Tacoma and to the Adriana Hess Wetlands in University Place.
And native plants are also becoming popular with a growing number of home gardeners.
Thurston explains their appeal: “Native plants use less water. They eliminate the need for chemicals. They attract wildlife.”
ORCHID LOVERS
Out in rainy Graham, Rathbun’s expert eyes spot a fawn lily. But as she begins digging, she loses the tiny plant’s roots in the dirt.
Undaunted, she returns to the dig in search of her next green prize.
She cherishes all native plants. But as founder of the Washington Native Orchid Society, she has a special passion for the 41 species of orchids native to our state.
“I started the club because I love orchids,” she says. “I’ve seen too many orchid colonies plowed under.”
Her group of carefully chosen conservationists seeks both to protect native orchid communities in the wild and to research the best ways to propagate the plants in their home gardens. Overly enthusiastic orchid collectors and loss of habitat have endangered many of our state’s native orchids, Rathbun says.
She says her members ask permission before digging up native orchids.
“We don’t poach in our club,” she says. “We are selective of members. They have to apply.”
She and her mother plan to take much of their share of the salvage from the Graham site and transplant it on Taylor’s property near Case Inlet.
THE NEOPHYTE
Trish Willebrand grew up in the Northwest, but became interested in native plant gardening while living in Michigan. Since returning to the Northwest in 2004, the South Hill mom has been trying to educate herself about Western Washington plant species. She turned to the Internet. That’s where she learned about the salvage alliance.
Her day at the Graham dig was her second outing with the group.
“I don’t know a lot, but I rely on others here,” she says. “Everybody has great things to teach and tell.”
EARLY BIRD
Janet Wall got out of bed at 5:45 a.m. so that she could make it from her Issaquah home to the Graham dig on time. She tends her own 2 acres, and she also helps care for 13 acres of steep slopes owned by the City of Issaquah.
A retired fisheries biologist, she is interested in restoration of wild lands with native plants.
“If you’re going to save areas – critical areas – you might as well make them the best they can be,” she says.
A FRESH START
Connie and Rob Mayor’s property in Auburn – a shy half-acre – is home to trillium and native roses. The couple bought some goats to clear out an overgrowth of invasive Himalayan blackberries. Now that the blackberries are gone and the goats are sold, they are ready to replant with native species.
They saw the Graham salvage as a great opportunity to obtain some low-maintenance plants for their yard.
“I know a little bit, but not much,” says Connie Mayor.
“It’s a learning experience.”
As they carried a batch of ferns to their car, they spotted a tiny fir tree growing in the right of way near the road. The tree had taken root directly beneath power lines and would most likely be cut when it grew taller.
“We might as well rescue it,” thought Rob.
So the Mayors started digging.
WHAT GROWS THERE
A sampling of native plants growing at the Graham site where volunteers recently helped salvage native plants:
- Trailing snowberry
- Indian plum
- Beaked hazelnut
- Oregon grape
- Hooker’s fairybells
- False Solomon’s seal
- Western trillium
- White fawn lily
- Chocolate lily
- Rattlesnake plantain
- Western coralroot
- Western trumpet honeysuckle
- Sword fern
- Woodland strawberry
- Baldhip rose
You’ll receive driving directions to the events.
Children younger than 14 are welcome with adult supervision.
For more information about the alliance: www.ssstewardship.org