English Holly Worse than Expected

Best practices and Safety Briefing

We estimated it would take 3 weeks to remove, or otherwise control, holly in the southern forest adjacent to the North Creek Heights  neighborhood. We were off by 400%. The stands of holly here are thick. We also are finding young patches too low to see on a casual walk about.

We are grateful Waste Management Inc. is providing us with a free giant dumpster and Cedar Grove will compost the holly for free also. Cedar Grove compost gets so hot it breaks down holly. Don't try this at home. Put it in your yard waste container for the pros.

It looks like we will need a ton of people to move piles to the dumpster. We ran out of room to pile holly in one location. We are grateful neighbor Marty Fries (yellow house on 112th) is letting us put the dumpster and holly on his property.

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Photographer, Teppei Sato building another pile.

We need a big Volunteer turn out on Saturday February 23, 11 AM - 2:30 PM. The dumpster will be delivered earlier that week and we need to fill it. This will be a BBQ event.

We also need volunteers for this coming Saturday, February 16th. 11 AM - 2:30 PM. We will have plenty of snacks, hot chocolate, coffee and juice.

Joining us for the first time?
Map HERE.

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Reclaiming a forest

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Piles and piles of holly.

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A tall variety of Oregon Grape also grows here. This native plant provides a valuable food source for wildlife. It can be confused with holly at first glance so we explain the difference on each work day.

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We found the best method for moving holly to the pickup location is a slow tow. Putting it in the truck involves extra hours of cutting everything up in small pieces.

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A family with the beginning of a back yard wildlife sanctuary.

Piper Creek Nursery donated a wild rose for every volunteer that showed up! You folks at Piper Creek have a bounty of community spirit. THANK YOU!

If you need native plants please stop by Piper Creek. Good people doing good work.

Finally our thanks to the Rose Foundation who awarded us with a Grassroots Grant enabling us to expand our stewardship of this magnificent forest.


You know where you can find us...
Thanks,
FNCF

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