Sowing the Seeds of Hope | Project 6 of 30
“He who plants a tree, plants a hope”
-Lucy Larcom, from her poem “Plant a Tree”
SFEG’s native plant nursery sprouted from humble beginnings way back in the 1990s, on borrowed land at the Northern State Campus with help from the Cascades Job Corps program headquartered there. Thousands of donated or cheaply acquired trees and shrubs were heeled in to await planting at restoration sites. Our current Stewardship Coordinator, Bengt Miller, was our Washington Conservation Corps member at the time, and helped start our nursery with a donation from San Juan Conservation District. In spring 2000, a potted nursery was started there, with plants salvaged from nearby properties, rescued from the rejects pile at area plant sales, or gotten by some other cost-effective means. A dozen years of trial and error happened there with the help of so many volunteers, under the watchful guidance of late SFEG Board Member Jim Thomas.
In late 2012 the nursery was moved to its current location, and the Samish Tribe has been a great partner in this endeavor. The nursery is nestled between Burlington and Sedro-Woolley on the banks of Thomas Creek. Through an agreement with the Samish Indian Tribe, SFEG rents tribal-owned land for the purpose of growing native plants for future restoration projects. At maximum capacity our nursery holds about 10,000 plants, and anyone who has attended a potting party or weeded over the summer has seen it in its full glory!
We’ve battled snow, ice, flooding, and wandering cows over the years, and often have the company of assorted wildlife onsite. Oh, and a global pandemic. Never a dull moment, for sure. If you are one of the hundreds of volunteers who’ve helped out at our nursery over the past two plus decades we thank you! You are helping us grow the plants that will shade the salmon, feed the macroinvertebrates, stabilize the banks, and provide riparian habitat for countless species in the Skagit Watershed. THANK YOU!
-Lucy DeGrace, Outreach Manager
