Friends of Yesler Swamp is having a work party on Saturday from 10-noon. Participants can meet at the East Parking Lot of the Center for Urban Horticulture (3501 NE 41st Street).
Lists of projects to be done are:
- Get rid of invasives
- Plant natives
- Create shade (most invasive plants like sun)
- Create structure (forest floor, understory, canopy)
- Make habitat
- Create visual interest
- Increase biodiversity
- Build biomass and organic material
The invite says:
Why are we working to restore Yesler Swamp? Here is what Professor Kern Ewing says:
"Yesler Swamp sits in the middle of residential, commercial and transportation dominated land uses. It is not near any large acreages of native vegetation. As a consequence, it has been subjected to a long history of disturbance, it is bombarded by a seed rain from non-native plants, the climate that impacts the site is urban, not rural or natural, and there are not great refuges of other native plants to replenish it with a native biota.
"There is a simple rule in restoration: the more “natural” your surroundings, the easier the restoration. Our surroundings are not very natural, so a lot of work is going to be required to keep Yesler Swamp looking like a real freshwater swamp. Here are some of the things that we must do:
"If we do all of these things and are able to maintain a certain level of effort, we should create an environment that supports plants, birds, mammals, fish, amphibians and other organisms, while providing ecological functions that improve our lives (water quality, hydrology, local climate). In addition, we can teach, learn and enjoy because of the presence of this ecosystem."
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