Planting season is a crucial part of our restoration work and our year. For the Habitat Restoration Team (HRT), it is the small window when months of nursery propagation finally come to an end with outplanting, as seedlings leave the nursery and go into the ground.
This winter, we outplanted over 10,000 native seedlings—gumplant, alkali heath, and creeping wild rye to name a few—into the transition zones of our tidal marshes. These plants are more than habitat or beautiful scenery along the shoreline; they are our defense against rising sea levels. They sequester greenhouse gases, filter pollutants, and create essential high-tide refuge for endangered species that call the San Francisco Bay Area home.
This year’s planting season brought an additional unexpected challenge: a federal shutdown.
With access to federal lands restricted and agency partners on leave, our timeline was closing in. Thousands of plants needed to go into the ground, but restricted public access meant we had to cancel several planting programs, adjust our approach, and make a new planting plan.
Delays in planting can be tricky to navigate, since we time our planting season to align with natural weather patterns. If we wait too long, seedlings can miss their biological window, and invasive weeds have more time to outcompete the smaller native seedlings.
During this time, we couldn’t host members of the public at our Don Edwards NWR Ravenswood Pond site. Fortunately, we were able to come up with a solution.
Since our partners at the San Jose Conservation Corps (SJCC) are paid contractors on our permit for this project, they were able to support our small team, which doubled our team in size. After multiple seasons over the course of a few years working with the SJCC crews, they have become a vital extension of our team. Their corps members helped us pivot our work and compensated for the hundreds of public volunteers who would have normally helped us plant thousands of plants over the course of several weekends.
SJCC planted thousands of native plants over many weeks, ensuring that the moment the government shutdown was lifted we could shift our attention to other project sites. Their hard work turned a potentially massive delay into a testament to community resilience. By the time the government reopened, HRT and SJCC had finished outplanting at Don Edwards NWR Ravenswood Pond. We simply could not have kept our restoration goals on track without them.
Now, we need you to help us continue!
We have volunteer opportunities open to individuals, families, and corporate groups throughout the rest of the season.
Ready to get your hands dirty? Visit our Events Calendar to sign up for an upcoming planting day and help us secure a resilient future for the Bay.
