2021 was a jam-packed and prolific year of rare plant conservation for both Rare Care volunteers and staff. Safety remained a top concern, with care given to evolving COVID-19 protocols, and the wildfire season affecting access to many east side locations. Despite the extra challenges, we successfully completed research fieldwork and rare plant monitoring assignments, and added new collections to the seed vault.
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Volunteers are an incredibly important part of the UW Botanic Gardens family. We made a video to tell our volunteers just how much we appreciate and miss them.
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Thanks to spot on planning and recruitment by our partner, Arboretum Foundation, and cooperative PNW weather, two of our biggest community service events during the year were a huge success! We celebrated United Way Day of Caring on September 15, when 130 volunteers representing 6 companies; Nordstrom, Sonos, Fred Hutch, Google, IMPINJ, Microsoft and Chase Bank, participated in 7 arboretum projects led by UW Botanic Gardens horticulture and Seattle Parks and Recreation staff.
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Kyra Kaiser always dreaded public speaking growing up. So you might not expect that she would end up as one of UW Botanic Gardens’ most enthusiastic tour guides at the Washington Park Arboretum, leading groups of visitors into the secret places of that 230 acre forested gem inside the City of Seattle. Kaiser, a second year student at UW who intends to major in plant biology, leads free weekend walks at the Arboretum, a tour program with a broad focus that changes monthly according to the season and route taken.
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At the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, we rely on volunteers–over 500 of them– to keep daily operations afloat. Volunteer Carolyn Scott works in the administrative heart of the Gardens, helping Manager of Administrative Services Carrie Cone with record-keeping, mailing, filing and data entry. Born in 1921, Carolyn came to Seattle from Virginia in her early 30s with husband David who accepted a faculty position with the (then) College of Forestry at the UW.
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Heidi volunteers at the Hyde Herbarium, working with pressed plants and the plant database. She holds a PhD in archaeology, specializing in paleoethnobotany–the study of plant remains from archaeological digs. She spent many years at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, where she was also a science educator and creator of an ethnobotany garden and webpage. “I love to organize things,” says Lennstrom, “so working with the seven cabinets of duplicate specimens at the Herbarium is perfect for me!” Heidi carefully identifies which of the specimens are duplicates, confirms they have been entered into the Botanic Garden website and then determines which ones are kept and which ones need to be shared with other herbaria.
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In Emma Relei’s extensive list of “favorite” plants, one of them is the simple crocus, meaningful for her because of its prominence in a much-loved children’s tale, The Runaway Bunny; another is Ponderosa pine, because “it smells like vanilla!” Emma’s energy and enthusiasm for all things extends in many directions, including her work with specimens at the Hyde Herbarium. There she helps sort the 23,000+ species, catalogs them on the database, mounts species for filing and makes greeting cards.
Read more »How does a teenager experience a tour of the Washington Park Arboretum? Read about it first-hand from our summer communications volunteer.
Read more »The US Forest Service recognized Rare Care - including hundreds of trained volunteers from all parts of the state - with its Regional Volunteer Award for Citizen Stewardship and Partnerships.
Read more »Thanks to dedicated volunteers, over 22,000 pressed plant specimens have been reviewed and documented.
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