PORT TOWNSEND — A five-person field crew with the Northwest Watershed Institute will wrap up the planting season this week, having completed plantings and weed control at restoration sites along Tarboo Creek and Dabob Bay.
Overall this winter, Plant-A-Thon volunteers and the institute’s field crew have planted 11,000 native trees and shrubs on the Tarboo watershed, said Peter Bahls, executive director.
That includes 4,500 bare-root and potted plants and 6,500 live stakes at 10 sites.
The plantings are part of a long-term effort of the institute, a nonprofit based in Port Townsend, to restore habitat for salmon and other wildlife in the Tarboo-Dabob watershed south of Port Townsend and northwest of Quilcene.
Since 2004, more than 2,000 acres have been preserved, and more than 600 hundred of acres have been re-meandered, replanted and restored, institute officials said.
Volunteers with the annual Plant-A-Thon have over the course of the past decade planted 33,000 trees in the watershed.
This year, 175 Plant-A-Thon volunteers planted 3,000 native trees Feb. 14, said Judith Rubin, director of stewardship for the institute, which organizes the effort.
They returned for the second time in a decade to the Tarboo Wildlife Preserve, a 490-acre wildlife refuge managed by the institute that is a “challenging section of Tarboo Creek,” Rubin said.
The creek and nearby wetlands are dominated by invasive non-native reed canary grass, she said.
Crews aim to revive native shrubs and trees.
The trees provide shade and stream structure for shaping salmon spawning and rearing areas, Rubin explained.
Native plants also are the vegetative base of the food chain that supports young coho salmon during their first year of living in the stream before migrating to sea, she said.
As well as standard methods of planting, such as rooting bare-root seedlings and potted plants, the crews used more-innovative systems, Rubin said.
They laid down cardboard and staked live willows through them so they could shade out the invasive reed canary grass.
They also planted spruce and cedar in hollow log rounds and constructed planter boxes to establish trees above the wet soils.
Since 2005, hundreds of students, parents, teachers and friends from seven schools in East Jefferson County have volunteered for the Plant-A-Thon.
During that time, they have raised more than $125,000 for school programs through the sales of honorary tree cards.
One tree card is sold for each native tree planted. Sponsors can buy cards and send them to family and friends.
Although all of the trees have been planted, cards can still be purchased for this year.
The image on this year’s card is of an acrylic painting “Infinite Moment(um)” by Port Townsend artist Jesse Joshua Watson.
They cost $5 to $10. They can be purchased at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-schoolsforplantathon or at participating schools.
This year, participating schools include Port Townsend School District’s OCEAN program, Port Townsend High School Students for Sustainability, the Chimacum Pi Program, Swan School and Jefferson Community School.
Students have raised approximately $15,000 to date for their schools this year by selling honorary tree cards.
Some students have grown up participating in the annual tree plantings.
Grace Webb, an 11-year-old student at Swan School who began planting in preschool, checked up this year on her past plantings.
She found that most had survived but that a few of the older trees by the creek had been flooded out.
“That’s OK,” she said, “It is still good, because salmon need wood in the stream to improve their habitat.”
Sisters Melanie and Nicola Pieper from Chimacum’s Pi Program anticipated following the example set by Dylan Nichol, who returns from college each year to help lead the event, Rubin said.
Krishna Pithva, an AFS exchange student from India in her senior year at Jefferson Community School, was a crew leader who said she had never seen anything like the event.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”
Returning youth crew leader Aelf Wiklund, a student in the Chimacum HS Pi Program, said the Plant-A-Thon “is more than an everyday tree planting.
“It is a quantifiable gesture of love for our planet.”
In late spring, student teams will return to monitor tree survival through hands-on projects aligned with math and science core curriculum.
At this year’s Plant-A-Thon, Gene Jones, Port Gamble S’Klallam tribal spiritual leader and a founding board member of the Northwest Watershed Institute, noted the importance of involving the young in habitat restoration.
He and his wife, Suquamish leader Marilyn Jones, opened the event with stories and song.
“It’s really exciting to see such a fine group of people out here today, the big ones and the little ones — especially the little ones,” Jones said.
“It’s important that we take care of our environment, and tree planting is part of helping to keep our waterways here clean and clear.
“The little guys out here today, they are learning something very, very valuable.”
