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.
Welcome new members–we look forward to getting to know you’all. And to those who have renewed–thank you! Memberships help support our organization and our gardens!
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!
May Class
Saturday May 20th at 10:00am entitled ~ Beginning Bird Identification ~ conducted by Brandon Burger, Backyard Bird Shop Vancouver www.backyardbirdshop.com.
We will talk about the basics of bird identification and touch on some of the more common backyard birds in our area. Time permitting, after the classroom presentation we hope to go out into the gardens and allow you to try your new skills so please dress appropriately.
Please let me know if you would like to attend this class to ensure proper chair set up and materials–members are always welcome.
Saturday Morning Work Parties
Saturday morning work parties are ongoing and last through October. For those who would like to volunteer at the gardens, each Saturday morning (from 9:00am to noon) volunteers are guided by one of our garden coordinators to work in the gardens. Non-Saturday dates will also be available as determined. 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
Bare Root Trees, Shrubs & Plant Sale-Update
It was great seeing so many of our members (and others) this past weekend! We had some good weather which I’m sure contributed to our successful plant sale.
We had a happy Raffle winner.
CASEE also had their greenhouse open selling native plants and did well.
It takes a large number of people to hold an event of this size and thanks to all of the volunteers and shoppers who helped make the sale fruitful (attempt at small pun).
We don’t have all of the numbers in yet but we’ll share more information next month–and more pics too!
Remaining potted items will be for sale at our Art in the Garden event in July.
Art in the Garden
Our next big event will be Art in the Garden on Sunday July 9th. This is the event where various artists will be displaying and selling their creations which are strategically located among the gardens. All artist’s applications are in and the committee will be meeting soon to make space selections for the artist’s placements. Stay tuned….
Did You Notice?……..
We have some new steps in the Water Wise Garden. Thanks to volunteer Ben and his family. Read more about Ben in Volunteer Spotlight below. 
Tours
Battle Ground Community Library in partnership with the Vancouver Audubon Society conducted a bird watching walk event at the gardens in April. They also went onto some of the trails behind the gardens (“CASEE trails”) as well. Summer, Senior Library Assistant had the following comments: “We were very glad to get no rain during the walk although everything was still rather wet. We are very grateful to you and NatureScaping for allowing us to use the gardens.”
Sharing……
For anyone interested….
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:
https://naturescaping.org/resources/free-booklet/
Recent Comments from Business Google
From Toni: 5 star review with pics and comment: “I literally stumbled onto your site or looking for something to do with my sister visiting from Yakima. It was a little early yet but you could tell in a few weeks it’s going to be fabulous! I definitely will be back soon.”
From Trisha: 5 star review
From Chris: 5 star review with pics
From Kelly: 5 star review and comment: “Beautiful gardens you can visit anytime of year. There are occasional art events here and a great plant sale every spring. There’s a path which meanders north and I just discovered recently. You can wander through the trees and enjoy nature just minutes from the city. It’s peaceful and beautiful, even if it’s a small circle. It is fairly easily traversed by most people. We visited during the wet half of the year and it wasn’t muddy or hard to walk any part of it…being fairly flat as well. Parking is free and so long as there is no event occurring…fairly easy to find a spot. The lot is gravel though and it can be difficult for those with mobility challenges to get to the gardens from it.”
Volunteer Spotlight
This month, written by Meredith Hardin….
NatureScaping relies on volunteers to maintain the ten gardens, compost site, and Mason Bees display within the Wildlife Botanical Gardens. We are proud of all the 12 Garden Coordinators, Maintenance Coordinator, Photographer and Mason Bee herder who stay on year after year because they love the beauty, physical labor, peacefulness of the gardens, visualizing what their gardens can become, enjoy making compost, and watching the gardens and our friendships evolve year after year.
We treasure the repeat community volunteers who come out to help us weed, move compost and bark chips, or prune, alongside our Garden Coordinators. One treasured community volunteer is Ben Pena.
Our May Volunteer of the Month is Ben Pena and family. Ben and his wife, Carolina, came to us last year seeking a garden to volunteer. Ben has years of experience in landscaping work. The Pena family have returned again and again to help with more advanced gardening needs such as laying or repairing irrigation drip systems, pruning trees and shrubs, adding railroad tie steps in the Water Wise Garden. Ben and Carolina often bring their children who help their father or help the Garden Coordinators with weeding, moving compost etc. Whenever we ask if Ben can help one of the Garden Coordinators, Ben and Carolina always say “yes”.
We also have the pleasure of getting to know the family and hearing about their oldest daughter’s high school graduation and her plans for the future. We love hearing about their lives and they are always smiling and a delight to talk and work alongside.
NatureScaping is very grateful for Ben, Carolina and their children’s support of the Wildlife Botanical Gardens. You mean a lot to us!!
Nature Related Quote of the Month
From Robin Williams: Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!
Party hardy and enjoy!!