Planting Trees for Fish
By Perry Welch

Native Plant Nursery
Nursery Work Days were held on February 25 and March 25.  During the first weekend volunteers potted over 900 bare root plants including black twinberry, snowberry, Western red cedar, and grand fir.  These plants will be nurtured by volunteers throughout the summer to become bigger and stronger plants that are more likely to survive at restoration sites.  Our Native Plant Nursery has become an excellent resource offering us the flexibility to plant when local nurseries do not have affordable stock available.  

Iron Mountain Ranch
Field staff and volunteers have been active in riparian restoration as SFEG is installing native plants within 2,900 feet of newly fenced area along the Skagit River.  This spring 32 volunteers attended planting events on this property owned by Seattle City Light.  On March 4 volunteers planted an estimated 380 plants including potted and bare root stock, and students from Skagit River Schoolhouse planted 50 trees on March 13.  We are nearly complete with plantings for this spring. 

Day Creek at Cedar Springs Renewal Center
On March 11, we held a planting event on Day Creek at Cedar Springs Renewal Center off Barben Road.  A riparian restoration zone of 1,300 linear feet was planted in a 30-foot swath.  Adding the existing vegetated riparian zone, the average vegetated riparian area will extend about 100 feet from Day Creek.  We installed about 450 plants in three hours with about 25 volunteers, including Board members Jim Johnson, Bob Carey and his son Grant, and Dan Ballard with his wife Linda, and Cascades Job Corps.  The following Monday one of the landowners called to express her appreciation for the effort and improvement to their riverfront land. 

Day Creek on the Edelson Day Creek Corporation property
The following weekend about 3.5 miles upstream on Day Creek, 34 volunteers planted 430 plants for about 1,200 linear feet of riparian zone.  The property is owned by a group of landowners who use the property for low-impact recreation.  The weather was nice and we had a well balanced work force with Cascades Job Corps, land owners, and SFEG staff and Board members.  It was gratifying to see such community enthusiasm for riparian restoration.  Landowner Peter Edelson said   “The planting was wonderful!  We are very pleased.  Thank you for a great project.  It was everything we hoped for and more.”   

Cascades Job Corps volunteers helped with potting new plants at the Nursery Work Day on March 25.

Ennis Creek
On April 3, a group of 10 AmeriCorps volunteers visited Ennis Creek at the Whatcom Land Trust property in the upper Samish River watershed.  The project was part of “Hands Across Puget Sound” coordinated by EPA Region 10, as a demonstration of how different agencies and organizations are working together to recover Puget Sound salmon.   The Ennis Creek event was led by SFEG staff, including Washington Conservation Corps volunteer Danny Cain, and Washington Service Corps volunteer Liz Leavens, along with staff from the EPA and Lori Kyle from the Skagit Conservation District.  The crew learned about Ennis Creek restoration and toured the planned channel re-route zone.  The participants divided into three work crews for hands on experience at riparian restoration.  The first group conducted a partial mortality inventory and replaced 185 dead plants with a variety of species.  The second group used weed whackers to prepare 9 new planting plots, and then installed approximately 100 new plants.  The third group used hand tools to clear reed canary grass around existing plantings.  Ennis Creek was one of seven different project sites the Americorps crew visited.  Film footage was shot at this event and will be included in a video presented at an Earth Day Celebration at Westlake Center.  Look for this footage on the EPA website in the coming weeks.

At the time of this writing, several additional planting events are planned throughout the Nookachamps and Samish watersheds.  SFEG staff will involve students from Emerson Alternative High School and Mount Vernon High School, and two adult groups doing Earth Day planting projects on Nookachamps Creek.

We’d like to thank all volunteers who helped make the Spring Planting season a success.  Your commitment of time and energy is an important contribution to restoring salmon habitat throughout the Skagit and Samish watersheds.  Thank you so much and we’ll see you in the fall!

     
At Day Creek on March 18, volunteer Abbey Maroney collects empty plant pots, while Cade and Levi Younger proudly show off the tree they have just planted.