The January 2013 edition of BGjournal features an article on the restoration work UW students have accomplished as part of the Restoration Ecology Capstone course sequence. The capstone works with community partners to accomplish restoration projects in and around Seattle. Capstone projects have helped to restore 15 acres of the Union Bay Natural Area, a former landfill.
To learn more, read the full article:
BGjournal 10.1 

The Woodland Park Zoo, in collaboration with several other local organizations, is working with volunteers to survey amphibian egg masses in local ponds and wetlands, including the Arboretum. Volunteers began 2013 monitoring in February. Already they have discovered loads of live Tree Frog eggs and possible Northern Red-legged Frog eggs in the upper pond of the Woodland Garden area! To read more about the program, scroll down to the “Amphibian Monitoring 2013” story on this page. 

Featured this time last year, we can’t help but mention this fragrant, winter-blooming shrub once again because it’s the best it’s ever looked thanks to a mild winter!

Witt Winter Garden

1) Chimonanthus praecox           Wintersweet

Wintersweet is in the allspice family of Calycanthaceae.
The sulfur-yellow flowers are intensely fragrant and are born on bare stems.
This winter garden favorite is native to China.

2) Ganya x issaquahensis            Hybrid Silktassel

This natural hybrid, between G. elliptica and G. fremontii, is native to the western U.S.
The showy male catkins will soon produce large amounts of yellow pollen. 

 
Amphibians are the canary in the mineshaft, warning-systems for deteriorating ecosystems and yet this species was found in the former-landfill, Union Bay Natural Area, in January 2013.  Nestled beneath woody debris and in hibernation mode, it was accidentally discovered by a volunteer during a work party to remove Himalayan blackberry.  Why isn’t this one “red-backed”, you ask?  That’s because although most commonly having an orangey-red dorsal stripe, this species occasionally presents a yellow one instead. 

Greetings! I’m excited and grateful to be the 2013 UBNA graduate student manager for winter and spring quarters. I will be leading volunteer groups maintaining restoration sites throughout the natural area and this season we have begun an internship program with students from Edmonds Community College!
The interns and I are working every Tuesday and Thursday through early June, so if you have any interest in getting dirty, releasing some pent up aggression on the proper objects (weeds!), and basking in the beauty of urban nature, we’re happy to have individual folks join us.   

Say goodbye to the “ramps to nowhere.” As part of the new 520 bridge construction project, the ramps will be coming down. As announced in a recent press conference, WSDOT will pay Seattle Parks and Recreation  $7.8 million for mitigation projects in the Arboretum.  These projects include the design and construction of a 1-mile multi-use trail, as well as improvements to Azalea Way Pond, parts of Arboretum Creek, and Foster Island. 

There are several species of Witch Hazel, genus Hamamelis, featured in the Witt Winter Garden, which is in all its glory this month.

Who says there isn’t much color in the landscape during the winter time? The month of February is peak bloom for one of the most delicate, yet tough plants in the winter garden.

“Scratch and Sniff”
1)  Abies amabilis (Pacific Silver Fir)

Pacific Northwestern native growing up to 250 feet tall in the wild, but is often short-lived in gardens.
Its crushed needles smell like orange peel.
The easiest of the Arboretum specimens to find is on the Upper Trail below the Peony bed.

2)  Cupressus goveniana var. pygmaea (Mendocino Cypress)

The “pygmy” stature occurs in this tree’s native habitat: infertile ancient sand dunes above the Pacific Ocean near Mendocino.