Friends Volunteers at Olympic NP's Matt Albright Native Plant Nursery
In October, the new Olympic National Park greenhouse facility at Robin Hill Farm County Park was dedicated as the Matt Albright Native Plant Center. The new greenhouse and nursery provide a greatly expanded facility for the park’s ongoing and highly successful revegetation program, and for the upcoming Elwha restoration project. After the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams are removed and the reservoirs drained, hundreds of thousands of native plants will be used to restore native vegetation to the over 700 acres of lakebed that will re-emerge after the reservoirs are drained. Stabilization of the new banks to control sediment movement downstream is crucial in preserving native salmon habitat in the lower river and estruary.
The facility includes a 30 x 70 foot greenhouse, office, 120 x 400 foot pot yard with two 20 x 30 foot cold frames. Since January, Friends volunteers have completed the projects below, all aimed at enabling the nursery to accomodate a dozen or more volunteers seeding flats for the greenhouse, transplanting seedlings into pots, cultivating annual crops for seed increase, etc.
Click on any thumbnail for a larger photo.
Volunteers pouring the 14x16 ft slab for the soil bin. This bin will hold 10 cubic yards of potting soil, enough for perhaps 1000 pots or one month.
Soil bin walls completed.
Friends plans to host an "Ewha Restoration Mural Day" in May, for Sequim art students to draw a mural depicting elements of the Elwha ecosystem. The soil bin is located along the Olympic Discovery Trail at the entrance of the nursery, so is a highly visible canvas.
The roof is designed in sections which are easily removable by one person when a dump truck arrives with a soil delivery.
Friends members and volunteers Lisa, Neil, Hans and Rod.
Volunteers have completed installation of the sprinkler irrigation system in the pot yard. 400 feet of 2 inch pipe, 1500 feet of 1 inch pipe, and 90 sprinkler heads are supplied by a 10 hp high-efficiency irrigation pump. Pots can dry out quickly in summer (and even in spring in dry Sequim), so this sprinkler system is essential. Nearly 200 hours of volunteer labor went into this project, about half trenching and half plumbing.
At left, a building has been moved onto a site prepared by volunteers. We hope this will become the site office for Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) nursery work.
At right, an outdoor work shelter is under construction. The site prep work was just completed, posts set in concrete, landscape cloth and gravel laid.
Outdoor potting shelter upon completion of 60 volunteer hours. This 8x24 foot shelter accomodates two 4x8 foot benches for transplanting seedlings from greenhouse flats tnto outdoor pots for further growth in the pot yard. It is sided and roofed with polycarbonate, like the greenhouse, for year-round use in all weather.
Building walls to complete...
...an enclosed cold frame
Hans, Dave and Neil building doors...
...with storage built by Neil & Lisa!
Volunteers built this 13 foot workbench in the greenhouse for volunteers to use when seeding flats. This work included trenching and plumbing water and drain lines and installing this sink, so workers need not go into the office to wash up.
Mist tents built by volunteers within the greenhouse keep cuttings moist while they are rooting. Cuttings from a variety of native shrubs are being propagated within it.
Hans Flockoi
Volunteers Don, Hans, Lisa, Neil, Rik, Rod, Spence, and Steve have contributed to the projects pictured here. Hans Flockoi has emerged as a leader of this "Construction Brigade", as his enthusiasm and extensive experience operating a contracting business make us all feel like we know what we're doing! Park botanists Dave Allen and Josh Chenoweth design, supervise and pitch right in on all these projects.
It is a privilege to contribute to the Elwha restoration, and to our Olympic National Park. Join us by contacting Greenhouse volunteer coordinator Jill Zarzeczny or nursery manager Dave Allen 683-0757.
Friends of Olympic National Park - January/February 2010
