Restoring critical Forest Habitat With Micro-Nurseries IN THE SEATTLE AREA
Grow It Forward is a new group of gardeners in the greater Seattle area who grow valuable native tree and shrub seedlings for habitat restoration organizations to use to restore critical habitats. Read below to get a summary of the project.
MISSION STATEMENT: Empower citizens to help heal the environment by connecting them to the organizations that do the hard work of restoring native wildlife habitat.
1.
To begin, soil, nursery pots, landscape fabric, and commercially grown native seedling sprouts are distributed to volunteer gardeners. Each gets enough to make a 100 seedling “Micro-Nursery”.
2.
The gardeners plant the seedling sprouts in the pots, which they lovingly tend as they grow for the next 2 years. If arranged in a square, each 100 seedling Micro-Nursery measures only about 4 feet by 4 feet.
3.
After 2 years, the seedlings have grown bigger and are strong enough to better survive in the wild. Grow It Forward then collects and transports them to local sites undergoing habitat restoration.
4.
Habitat Restoration organizations plant the finished seedlings at sites where they are restoring damaged habitat to a more natural forest. Such forests will support many other important plant and animal species than land in farming, pasture, or otherwise developed.
- PAULA & CHRIS P.
MICRO NURSERY VOLUNTEERS
If you are a Habitat Restoration Organization that would like to connect with our volunteers and plant our seedlings at your project sites, please send us an email at: growitforward1@gmail.com
