Our Bedrock
Mission Statement: Gardens and programs that inspire, educate and enrich our lives and our community.
Purpose Statement: To educate and encourage citizens on the importance of developing, restoring, maintaining and conserving wildlife habitat and the native plants that comprise that habitat.
Membership:
Welcome new members!! We hope to see you at our monthly classes and upcoming events.
Renewal Information:
Renewal notices (for the most part except for exceptionally large volume months in which case they are emailed) are sent out via USPS during the month in which it is due.
Note: We can now accept memberships and renewals online with this link: Membership/Renewals.
However, to help us cover our processing costs for the convenience of using online payments, it is necessary to include those costs in our online membership fees. Amounts remain the same as before for checks/cash.
Separate donations can also be transacted online!
Donations/Memorials.
Memberships/renewals help support our organization and our volunteer maintained gardens! Thanks to those who have renewed and have done so continuously and generously.
March Class
Please review this flyer for our ZOOM class on Saturday, March 15th at 10:00am ~ Native by Design: Reimagine Beauty with More Habitat, Less Lawn ~ conducted by Eileen M. Stark, Author/Eco-landscape designer.
Want to garden with an ecological focus; look at your landscape with fresh eyes? Eileen will share design principles with an ecological focus–native gardening, minimizing lawn, choosing and arranging locally native plants in their natural associations and according to site conditions.
Bio–Eileen Stark is a Portland-based ecological landscape designer, consultant, author, photographer, and speaker whose academic background includes biology, wildlife ecology, and design. She is a deeply committed conservationist who strives to create awareness of the myriad creatures with which we share this fragile planet. Her book, Real Gardens Grow Natives: Design, Plant, and Enjoy a Healthy Northwest Garden helps guide gardeners in designing for both beauty and biodiversity using wildlife-friendly landscaping methods.
This is a Zoom presentation with an opportunity for questions. Registration required–a link will be provided to registrants prior to class.
February Class–Recap
Another large turn out for our class, Mushroom Hunting for Beginners, conducted by Rebecca Lexa, Naturalist. Identification is key before deciding to eat foraged mushrooms! Test, test and retest using various tools and techniques for analysis–don’t be fooled by look-alikes.
Work Parties
Get your hands dirty and volunteer at the gardens! Our work parties have begun and will last through October. On work days volunteers are guided by one of our garden coordinators to work on needed tasks/projects in the various gardens. We have a sign-up system using SignUpGenius.
Additional sign up dates will be routinely added. To sign up to work on listed days, here is the link:
SignUpGenius
Note: We’d like to add more weekdays (and vary the times) for our sign-up schedule. Help us determine
the days / times of day when you might have the most interest in volunteering at the gardens. Please take a few minutes to share your preferences with us by responding to the
survey. We’re hoping to establish a few non-weekend Work Parties in April. Thank you in advance!
Bare Root Trees, Shrubs and Perennial Sale
The word is out!! We are having our annual Bare Root Trees, Shrubs & Perennial sale this year at the Wildlife Botanical Gardens located at 11000 NE 149th Street, Brush Prairie on Saturday, April 26th from 9am-4:00pm, and Sunday, April 27th from 10am-3:00pm.
NatureScaping is offering bare root trees for $15+, bare root shrubs for $7 and potted perennials starting at $1. Potted/bagged & burlapped, and special items will be priced as marked. Need Mason Bee cocoons and/or supplies? We will have them. NatureScaping will be accepting credit cards (MC/VISA), cash, and checks.
Want native plants? Students from the adjacent CASEE Center will be selling native landscaping plants from their greenhouse. They will be accepting credit, cash and checks. Garden Delights Herb Farm (Saturday only) will have a variety of herbs and herbal products. Beautiful photo cards will be offered, and we’ll have a raffle “basket” for sale.
Shopping
Open to the public Saturday after 11:00am and all day Sunday. Members, (up-to-date with their dues and new members) will have early and exclusive access to the sale for the first 2 hours starting at 9:00am on Saturday. We will be using SignUpGenius to schedule people at the 9:00am and 10:00am hours Saturday only. Each signup slot on Saturday will allow the attendee up to 4 additional people as needed. A link to sign up for shopping will be live the first week of April.
Volunteer Opportunities:
This is our big fundraising event of the year, and it takes lots of volunteers before and during the sale event!
Volunteers working a 4-hour shift will receive one complimentary bare root tree, shrub (only those varieties with quantities of 10 or more) or perennial. You will have opportunities to pick up your free plant. Please note: We will no longer be allowing shopping during your volunteer time.
1.. Volunteers needed for pre-salework during the weekday:
- Heeler: Place and cover or “heel” the bare root trees into the sale area
- Inventory Writers: Working in teams of two, going through rows of heeled in items writing down the plant common name and quantity.
- Labeler-placer: Writing labels-placing finished labels on plants
2.. Volunteers needed on sale days (some jobs are more physical than others):
- Field Helper: Help with selections and help pull trees for purchase
- Holding area: “Check in” and hold plant loads while people continue to shop
- Bagger: Dip bare root trees in water, place into bags.
- Checker: Write up sales slips for cashiers.
- Cashier: Do the math (calculators furnished) and take in checks or cash (no coin change transactions).
Won’t you please check the sign-up and see when/if you could help? Our success depends upon our volunteers–please consider helping. It would be much appreciated!
Did you Notice…..
We also have a new bulletin board up on the shed–come see for yourself. Thank you Rosemarie!
Some Mason bee tubes and the first of the mason bee cocoons were set out at the gardens on
Sunday by our Bee Herder Brigg. One of the tube holder structures is attached to the front of the shed closest to the main path, while another is further back behind our sheds, attached to a different shed. Another batch of cocoons will be set out the first Sunday in April. Don’t worry, we’ll still have plenty for our plant sale, so you can have your own!
Noticing signs of Spring? Visit the gardens soon and see what you can find!
Tours/Talks
We were invited to speak at the Vanridge Garden Club
on February 17th on the topic of naturescaping as a gardening technique. Celeste (events/programs chairperson) created a beautiful slide demonstration which she and Meredith (president) presented. Reactions were positive and Celeste said “they were an engaged group, and we had a good discussion.”
Always striving to best share information, our standard flyers in display boxes at the gardens are now on our website.
Booklet
With funding from a Washington Native Plant Society (WNPS) grant and with many volunteer hours from committee members (you know who you are) a longtime dream has been fulfilled.
We have created a free 52-page booklet as an educational tool that includes dozens of high-quality photos, descriptions and other information regarding native plants found at The Wildlife Botanical Gardens and reasons to incorporate them in your landscape. Here is the link to finding it on our website:
Nature Related Quote of the Month
From Hal Borland: You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.
