What would Eagle Landing Park look like if it was healthy?  EarthCorps prepared a report on that subject, and I hope that someone besides me will read it.  Prior to the EarthCorps report, I had chopped up the park into 18 sections that I could identify by landmarks, as seen in this map.  Stewart Wechsler, a steward who volunteers in Lincoln Park, recommends that restoration should begin with those areas that are healthy and free of invasive species, and expand outward from there.  Although no section of ELP is currently free of invasives, section 5 on the map is the closest thing to healthy.  Following Stewart's advice, I will work on section 5 this year to see if I can get that third of an acre completely free of invasive species.  I shouldn't need to do much planting in that section, because it is already quite full of native plants.  They should fill in any spaces left by the removal of invasive species.  If I tackle one section per year, I can have the whole park healthy in just 18 years.  Maybe I can recruit some help to make it go a little faster.

Stewart Wechsler is a fountain of information on the ecology of the Seattle area.  He will be giving guided tours of local parks this weekend, and you can find the details at his web site.  I hope to make at least one of these field trips.  Stewart and I are two of the 512 graduates of the Stewardship Program since 1996.  Together, these WNPS volunteers have contributed over $1.6 Million of restoration and education services to local communities over the last 15 years.  Although I am not as knowledgeable about native plants and ecosystems as Stewart is, I keep learning, hoping to catch up.  The trouble is, he keeps learning, and faster, so I may never catch up.

I have certainly learned from my mistakes.  Money and time have been wasted by planting native trees at the wrong time in the wrong places.  Compared to the 204 trees I counted the other day that I have planted, there may be another fifty or so that I planted that did not survive.  Also, I have cleared areas of invasive species time after time only to have those areas become re-infested.  So, if I succeed in cleaning up section 5, when I move on to the next section I will also have to keep an eye on the work I did in 2012 to make sure it isn't undone.  Another mistake I have made is the removal of a native when I thought I was pulling an invasive weed.  Rule number one in restoration: don't kill it if you aren't 100% sure what it is.  This park has a healthy but dwindling population of native honeysuckle.  Unfortunately, many volunteers with good intentions have killed certain honeysuckle plants, thinking it was an invasive weed like ivy or clematis.  Not all vines are evil.  I hope someone who reads this feels inspired to help with the restoration of ELP, but don't pull it if you aren't 100% sure it's an invasive species.

Stone number five is pictured above, to the right of the previous four stones.  I also collected my strand of ivy, two bags of trash, and 3 miles, for a total of 13 miles this year.  All three dogs came with me.