Rain, wind and a chorus of Pacific treefrogs greeted me on a typically gray March day at Magnuson Park as I arrived to meet up with Lynn Ferguson, MESA Education Chair, to get the grand tour of Promontory Point and learn about stewardship opportunities. It had been nearly 20 years since I last volunteered there and I was in for a big surprise. MESA (Magnuson Environmental Stewardship Alliance) has been working hard since July 1999 to enhance the 20 acre natural area at the south end of the park, removing invasive plants while planting thousands of native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers to benefit birds and other wildlife (including you and me).
                                                                                                                                                                         
A quick glance at the trail map from east to west shows the diversity of habitat beginning with the ample shoreline of Lake Washington, across the grassy meadows of the basin, up the wooded bluff of Promontory Point, and over to the wet and dry meadows on the other side. It was not hard to notice where work had been done. Such lovely natives as Indian plum, Pacific red elderberry, and redflowering currant were already in bloom drawing hummingbirds and insects, while giant western sword ferns and drooping branches of Douglas fir and salal swayed and glistened with raindrops.

As we toured these areas along the trail it was also easy to see where work has yet to be done. Of the 35 plant signs only 4 indicate invasive, introduced species; Himalayan blackberry, Scot’s broom, clematis, and English ivy, and yet these 4 were everywhere strangling the land, the few trees and ferns which had managed to take root somehow persisting under this constant barrage of foreign leaf and vine. It wasn’t pretty, in fact it was downright ugly.

But then we would stop and Lynn would point out a site and tell me about a Boy Scout troop who had come in and cleared an area, planting it with natives which were now happily thriving, or where Earthcorps had dug out a large, established blackberry patch, putting in it’s place native deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs, and ferns. And so, here and there, MESA was taking the land back for the flora and fauna. It was exciting to see. It was even more exciting to discover that I could pick my own site to steward from any of the areas we had toured.

But which one? Should I hug the shoreline and rip out the Scot’s broom that would soon flower and go to seed? Should I try my hand in Kingfisher Basin and keep the Himalayan blackberries at bay? Should I wind my way up the bluff and take on a wooded section where the trees where oh so sweetly calling me? Of them all one in particular seemed to have my name on it. The Earthcorps site at the top of the bluff sitting astride Promontory Point itself.

This triangular site had been cleared and planted a few years before and already the invasives were once again stretching their ugly tentacles over the land. The sword ferns now hidden under shadow of smothering vine, the trees girdled with skirts of a thousand thorny brambles, the site was literally in the midst of being reconsumed by the invaders. It needed a loving hand to bring the light of day back to threatened leaf, twig and root. To give the flora and fauna somewhere to grow.

One Day at a Time

 

Being a steward at Magnuson Park is for the birds. Literally. As one walks across Kingfisher Basin brightly colored American goldfinches and violet-green swallows soon appear before one’s eyes and the sound of downy woodpeckers and northern flickers hammering distant trees reverborates past one’s ears. Such is the avian welcome on any spring day.

But, I dare not stop and dawdle, I have business to attend. I have a site to steward, habitat to renew. With determined feet the stairs up the steep bluff are soon behind me and I am walking down the verdant trail that curves ahead until at last my site comes into view and I can’t help but smile. Here is a little bit of paradise. Native shrubs in blossom are abuzz with bees, trees are unfurling the translucent fresh green of new leaves under a bright sun and blue sky which frames a spectacular view of the lake and mountains. But every paradise has a corresponding hell and I must turn my gaze from the dreamy view beyond to the nightmare below.

They know I’ve arrived. I can feel the thorns already angling to snatch shirt sleeve and pant leg if no bare skin is on offer. I can see the brambles growing denser, higher as every minute passes they are allowed to remain. I can hear the vines twisting around tree trunks and ferns in a last ditch effort to hang on. So, I double-tie my boots, pull on my heavy-duty gloves, tug my cap one more time and set to work.

Strategy becomes important in this kind of battle, not just against the invasives, but against the tools and weather as well. For one thing, the sun doesn’t always shine and one soon learns shovels don’t like mud, trying to dig out blackberry roots when it rains is a sticky proposition, a mess best avoided. Brambles may not be fond of pruners rain or shine, but pruners don’t care if they’re wet, they cut just as sharply. And so each day becomes a singular event according to the elements which the job at hand must cater to.

This March day it is sunny and I am at the bottom of the site where redflowering currant, Indian plum and western sword fern are trying to reach for the sun, if only the brambles will let them. The going is slow, alternately pruning off the spiny, straggly stems (some 10’ or longer!) down to foot-long stubble, then digging the plant out with a shovel to unearth the gargantuan blackberry root that has produced such monster vines. Not an easy task rain or shine is this. Blackberry roots are masters in the art of hunkering down for all eternity, swelling and grasping the soil never to let go. These roots are just about as loathe to give up an inch of earth as the brambles above are to be cut without striking back with every last barb. But it must be done, the stems must be cut, the roots must be dug, for they will send up new shoots from any length of root or stem left in the ground. Every last bit of it must be thrown on the heap.                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                     After a few days of pruning and shoveling like this I had gotten no farther than the lowest, widest stretch of the triangle and the tedium was beginning to wear, there was no end! Or so it seemed. I was saved by the unlikely, by rain.  The fair weather came to an end and two weeks of wet skies set in. Strategy was adapted in kind and, putting shovel aside, spirits undampened I set to with pruners against the tangled mess of brambles still holding most of the site hostage. This was a much quicker form of gratification. Starting at the wide end of the triangle I tore through the prickly, tangled mess faster than it could tear through me. At times it was akin to slapstick comedy as the long shoots would whip out slapping me in places I would have preferred not to have been, but eventually I had the upper hand and the pile grew and the site began to take shape. Red alders, bigleaf maples, Douglas firs, Nootka roses, and many large, lovely western sword ferns that had been all but invisible under the tangle now began to appear, taking in air and sunlight.

And the day finally came, the sun returned and the last bramble was shorn from the root. Triumphantly the heap of cut blackberries was withering and the site was once again free for the native flora to grow, the fauna to return and inhabit. I could smile down now at this hell being returned to paradise. Though the stubble that now lay across it like five o’clock shadow was already mocking me, challenging me to dig up the vast quantity of roots before they sent new shoots skywards with the speed of fireworks on the Fourth of July.

I’ll be ready for them. One day at a time.