Pinehurst Seattle

An anonymous commenter to this post asked:

Hello. Does anyone know why all the brush (and a few lovely trees) were completely trampled down in the area just NE of Victory Park/QFC? We use the short cut path through this mini greenbelt to get to QFC and its now totally ugly and useless to the wildlife that fed there. The blackberries were a summer favorite. Are there plans for improvement? Was this a knee-jerk security measure? Why couldn’t hungry goats be used instead?

Here is more information from Eric Madis, Creek Steward for Victory Creek Park:

The city (in the Clean and Green Event) brought in the Department of Corrections to take the invasives from that area, while I worked in the central and south area of the park.

I agree, I was a little taken back by the devastation that they seem to have brought to the area. However, they took out all invasive vegetation, albeit not permanently. The blackberries will grow back, but if they are to grow back at all, we want to get feedback from people in that immediate neighborhood, so we can plan to quarantine their growth. Otherwise, they will take over everything, as will the morning glory, the ivy, the holly, and other invasives. It does look rather bleak over there, I agree. However, the green belt that the person is referring to was primarily invasives. We will be planting in that area now. I was shocked to discover a budding camelia in there, something I didn’t notice all of the time I worked in there, because of its location and its being surrounded by ivy and blackberry.

The reason why hungry goats weren’t used was because this was a one-day event and the city pretty much took control over parts of this. In addition, much of the deforesting took place after 1 PM, which is when Alika and I had to leave. I was as shocked as the person in the email, but the fact is, that work was needed. I only hope that we can plant enough trees and shrubs to fill the area nicely and eventually pull a lot of those invasive’s roots out.

As for wildlife, the only way we will get any wildlife back in there is to help restore a healthy enviroment. In the three and a half years that we have been creek stewards (and I go through the area almost every day), I have seen very few animals, other than a few squirrels, rats and a few birds. Sometimes there are ducks in the wetland marsh in the south side of the park, which is an area that has been improved. I would like to see the entire unimproved portion of the park (the wetland) be healthy, so we can see the return of more animals and birds. I prefer a wild, natural environment to a city park like environment, and it is the intention of Seattle Parks and Seattle Public Utilities to keep most of that area like a green belt. But it was a mess, a big unhealthy mess, despite its green appearance at glance.

So yes, we plan to plant in that area, and of course, we can always use more volunteers. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact me at (206) 362-8331 or emadis@juno.com. We are there the 2nd Sunday of each month from noon – 2 PM.