By Hector Garcia:
On December 5th, 2018, a chilly, wet day, the Restoration Ecology class made their last visit to the restoration site the group began to work on earlier in the semester. Up to this date, the group had collected data by monitoring vegetation with transect lines and taking note of what plants are present on the project site. The class also created a restoration planting plan with a tool provided by Point Blue Conservation Science that implemented resilience for climate change. Later in the semester,the class had special visitors from the Point Blue Conservation Science that looked at our site and gave the class advice on what to plant.
Preparing for planting
Before the class can get started with planting, half the students from Restoration Ecology and a few freshmen from a different GEP course removed some of the invasive species on the site: Himalayan blackberry and hemlock. Along with removing invasive species, pink tape was tied to already established native plant species that the group wanted to keep on the site. While half the group was working on the site, the rest of the group took a trip to the greenhouse and collected native plants that would be planted at the site.
Time to get dirty
Now the class was ready for the fun stuff: planting in the rain! Although the class was uncomfortable when they first got started, the students seemed to be so focused on the planting that they forgot about the rain! The students removed plants all around the area that the plants were planned to be placed to create a nice buffer and reduce competition between other plant species. Once the group finished planting, the last step was to add mulch around all the plants!
Some of the native plants added to the site:
- Coast Live Oak
- California Buckeye
- Sedge
- Juncus
- California Wildrose
- Bee Plant
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