Ecological restoration, or “the process of assisting in the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed” (SER, 2004), is what the Forest staff, interns, and volunteers do in the Thain Family Forest every day to reduce invasive plants and increase native plant regeneration in managed areas through planting.
We start with an inventory that samples nearly 250 plots that are 10 meters by 10 meters squared. The sampling involves measuring all trees and shrubs, living or dead, with one centimeter or greater diameter at breast height (DBH) and collecting percent cover information for all herbaceous plants, woody plant seedlings and saplings, and non-living components such as leaf litter, coarse woody debris, and bare soil. This inventory is repeated every five years and provides a picture of forest change overtime that allows us to prioritize management and guide the restoration process: inventory, establish priorities, manage invasive species, restore native species, and repeat. The Forest staff last carried out an inventory in 2011 and will be repeating this process in the summer of 2016.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center.
By this time of year, you probably have begun saving seeds of your favorite annuals and vegetables. Seed saving is fairly straight forward as long as you follow a few simple rules.
When collecting seeds in your garden, look for healthy plants that possess the characteristics you desire. If you have a pot marigold (Calendula) with a pale apricot color that you admire, collect seeds from the paler specimens to try and keep the nice shade. You will always get variation, but you are participating in the selection process as, in essence, an amateur breeder.
Many of your flowers and vegetables are cross-pollinated, Mother Nature’s way of passing along diversity. If you want the seeds to be pure, isolate the plant (generally by building a cage or covering for it) or pollinate by hand, but this is generally only necessary for commercial growers or for seed-saving enterprises.
Most important is to always choose healthy plants so that you end up with healthy, viable seeds. Don’t waste your time collecting seeds from F1 hybrids. They will never come true to seed, and you will get some strange results. Heirloom varieties, on the other hand, tend to be fairly stable and are wonderful to collect.
