Thank you for another tremendous year of volunteering in North Creek Forest! Our final numbers include 3,243 volunteer hours contributed by 558 individual volunteers for 2016. During that time, we planted about 400 native plants, spread almost 110 cubic yards of mulch, and removed about 40 cubic yards of invasive plants.

Volunteers came from local companies, neighborhoods, schools, and community based groups.

For local companies, we'd like to thank Bothell Boeing, Starbucks, and Disney Store employees, as well as Bartlett Tree Experts, Northwest Arboriculture, and Go Natives! Nursery for donating plants, mulch, and employee time.

Students from UW Bothell, Cascadia College, Edmonds Community College, Bellevue College, Soundview International Baccalaureate School,  Woodinville High School, Bothell High School, Woodinville Montessori, and Inglemoor High School all volunteered to help protect North Creek Forest.

Lastly, thank you to all of the community organizations including the Girl, Cub, and Boy Scouts, Whale Scout, and the Northshore YMCA for their volunteer time as well.

The final numbers are in and we planted 161 native trees and shrubs and spread 20 cubic yards of mulch during our Fall Planting Event on Nov. 19th! The work was completed by a total of 62 volunteers who were neighbors, Soundview students, members of local Girl Scout troops, college students, or from Whale Scout. Thank you to everyone who volunteered and helped reinforce the access trails and increased the amount of native plants within North Creek Forest!

We'd also like to thank Bartlett Tree Experts in Kemore and Go Natives! Nursery who between them, donated all of the plants with an estimated retail value of $650.

The beginning of a new year also means the beginning work for a new restoration site! As part of your new year's resolution, or just for fun, join us on Saturday, January 7th for our opening of the 242nd St. Restoration Site from 10:00am - 1:00pm. If interested, please sign-up via our website's volunteer page. Thanks!

The UW Restoration Ecology Network (UW-REN) is a tremendously valuable partner. Each year, since 2011, a team of UW students has planned and executed a restoration project in North Creek Forest. This year's team brings multiple ecological capabilities ranging from invasive removal, plant identification, technical skills including video editing and GIS mapping, as well as multiple accounts of project management experience. Read on to learn more about this year's team, and join us for their first work party on January 7, 2017 to meet them in person.

Help us celebrate the hard work of this year's UW-REN team, as well as hundreds of volunteers who helped pull invasive weeds, spread mulch, and plant natives! Join us on June 3 at 5pm for a BBQ and site tours to learn more about the project.

The party will be behind our office at:
20218 108th Ave. NE
Bothell, WA 98011

Look for a gravel path to the right of the house and follow it down and around to the back! We'll have a small sign showing you the way.

Please RSVP using the form below.

This year's restoration site is almost complete, thanks to our hard working UW-REN team, and many volunteers! On Earth Day weekend, we teamed up with Whale Scout, Cascadia College, UW-Bothell, our neighbors, and the general public to continue our work to remove invasive species and enhance the native habitat at the edge of North Creek Forest. 

After a break, we switched gears to work on habitat enhancement projects, which included birdhouse assembly, mushroom colonization, bee house building and tree planting! Thanks to your hard work this restoration site will support an amazing array of native plants and wildlife, and even include oyster mushrooms right along the trail for human foragers to enjoy. 

Thank you to our dedicated volunteers who spent such a lovely spring Saturday working to provide a healthy forest for our community! We are blessed to have so many hard working volunteers, of all ages!

If our first work party is any indication - we have another strong team and we look forward to seeing the restoration progress through the winter and spring. Read on for more info and many more photos.

Over the past 6 months we have been ramping up our research program - formalizing a Research Committee, outlining projects, and investing in hardware and software that will enable us to collect, analyze and share data we collect in North Creek Forest. We also continue to partner with UW-Bothell and Cascadia College professors interested in using the Forest as an outdoor laboratory. Many of our UW-REN graduates are now helping out in various capacities in our research program, including Carolyn Stapp (UW-REN Capstone class of 2013-2014), who is serving as our Research Program intern. Carolyn is organizing data, coordinating the Research Committee, recruiting data collection volunteers, as well as serving on the Stewardship side of things as a Site Steward for her UW-REN project (Site 3). Thank you Carolyn - we appreciate your experience and perspective and all of your hard work!   

What happens to our restoration sites after the initial project is complete? How do we address questions like:

• Have we watered enough?
  
• What plants do well in which places?
• Are the weeds taking over again?
• Is the forest succession we planned for actually happening?
• Are our maintenance work parties sufficient?

Our restoration sites are designed by members of the UW Restoration Ecology Network (UWREN). Each UWREN team creates a habitat management plan that includes annual monitoring to help us assess how each site is doing.

Join us on Sunday, October 4, from 2-4pm for a hands-on Restoration Monitoring Workshop to learn more about how and why we monitor our restoration sites, and what we are learning from these efforts. 

Enjoy a hike through North Creek Forest and a tour of our restoration sites. Try your hand at the monitoring techniques and learn how you can get more involved in citizen science efforts in North Creek Forest. No previous experience required.

RSVP here

Learn more about our monitoring program.