By ELAINE WATKINS/YachatsNews.com
When one of Oregon’s state parks needs seashore bluegrass to restore a beach near Astoria, it contacts Celeste Lebo.
When native thistle needs to be planted to attract the endangered Oregon silverspot butterfly to a meadow south of Yachats, the parks turn to Sherri Laier.
Lebo and Laier scout salt meadows, searching for seed-bearing native plants. In newly built nurseries, they spend the spring forcing the seeds to break dormancy, then place the
seeds in rows of trays on almost an acre of tables. Thousands of seedlings survive to be planted during fall in places where beach habitats are being reclaimed.
The two natural resource specialists with Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department run native plant nurseries at Beaver Creek State Park north of Seal Rock and
Tugman State Park south of Florence.
These botanists are the local faces of a broad collaboration of non-profits developing banks of native seeds genetically adapted to a coastal environment. All along the Oregon coast,
partner nurseries are working to eradicate invasive species, restore habitat, and encourage the return of pollinators.
About two years ago, Lebo proposed that state parks partner with the Institute for Applied Ecology in Corvallis and the Tillamook Estuaries Partnership in Garibaldi to develop a native seed collection and propagation program. The Tillamook organization is the largest program of its kind on the coast.
Now there are eight satellite nurseries, run by groups as diverse as Lewis and Clark State Park to the Nestucca Valley Elementary School to the Siletz tribe. All are committed to raising container plants that are resilient and grow naturally at the Oregon coast.
The program is needed because there are no commercially available sources for native seeds. The seeds are cultivated in containers to create plants with local genotypes that can thrive and out-compete invasive species.
Lebo learned the work as coordinator for the Northwest Oregon Restoration Partnership. That organization was the first large producer of native plant materials on the north coast. Each year, it raises 75,000 to 100,000 plants that are placed in key locations in need of rehabilitation.
“It takes a lot of plants to restore a habitat,” Lebo said.
That task isn’t easy. After seeds are collected from native plants, they need to go through a simulated winter at the nursery to break dormancy and germinate in spring. Lebo and Laier use several techniques to achieve this.
Scarification is a process where the coat of each seed is nicked with sandpaper. Stratification involves refrigerating the seeds to force temperature changes. Some plants are soaked in bleach and others in boiling water to penetrate the seeds.
Silk tassel is one example. After Lebo and Laier collect plants in the wild, they soak them overnight, drain them, and rinse them in bleach. Then the seed-bearing plants are packed in peat moss and put in a refrigerator for three months.
According to Lebo, the goal is to have enough seeds that a “big cocktail mix can be sown widely on site.” That method is more efficient that using individual container plants.
For now, she supplies plants from a nursery at Beaver Creek State Park, north of Seal Rock. Two partner agencies, Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District and the Mid-Coast
Watersheds Council, put them in the ground at Sunset Beach state recreation area. Both agencies are experts in riparian and wetlands restoration.
Eventually, plants from Beaver Creek will be used at all the state parks from Yachats to Astoria.
Laier’s nursery is at Tugman State Park and serves coastal parks south to Coos Bay. Last year, she organized crews of Lane County Jail inmates to plant nearly 5,800 of her seedlings near Big Creek, south of Yachats.
“I do a lot of invasive removal,” Laier said. “It’s kind of destructive, so the nursery gives me a yin and yang sense of doing something super positive and nurturing.”
She said the Lane County inmates are happy to get outdoors and participate in the project. Laier says they work hard and get a lot done.
“They like to learn about what they’re doing. We might find a salamander or a cool bug, and then we stop and talk about it,” she said. Some ask what it might take to work for state parks.
It costs about $10,000 a year to run a native plant nursery. Some of that funding comes from the state parks. But to grow and hire staff, the agency and its partners got a grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhance Board to hire a part-time nursery coordinator.
But Lebo says none of the nursery work would be possible without volunteers like the Yachats Trails Committee and its subgroup, YIPS!
“The Yachats gang pretty much built the nursery at Beaver Creek,” Lebo said. “I’ve never had this much dedication from a group of people before.”
The trails committee group built a gate, tables, raised beds, and planter boxes. They laid gravel paths. All told, they spent about 1,600 hours fulfilling Lebo’s vision.
At sensitive sites all along the Oregon coast, habitats are being restored with native plants. Yarrow, aster, violets, and goldenrod attract pollinators like butterflies, flies, and bees. European dune grass gets yanked, and in its place seashore bluegrass, beach carrot, and footsteps of spring are thriving.
Lebo and Laier encourage ordinary citizens to choose native plants. They’re heartened to hear how Yachats is working to become part of a pollinator corridor along U.S. Highway 101.
“Things are moving forward in a really positive way,” Lebo says.
To learn more about coastal habitat restoration, go to:
