native plants

Help us maintain our recreational and educational facilities while having fun! This welcoming and relaxed volunteer experience features projects of every kind. We end the day with an activity; previous activities have included planting flower seeds to take home, weaving baskets from English ivy, building bird feeders, and guided hatchery tours. Kids must be age 7 or older to participate. Kids under age 16 must have a parent/guardian with them to volunteer. Kids ages 16-17 must have a parent/guardian sign them in at the beginning of the event.  To learn more and sign up contact Kaley McLachlan at volunteer@columbiasprings.org . 

We would like to invite you to this month's Rewilding Skill Series. The Rewilding Free Skills Series is a class & networking event that happens monthly, that usually occurs (but not always) on the last Saturday of the month. It is a place for social networking where people make new friends and hang out with old friends learning skills to connect us with humanity's ancestral past and more local and sustainable future. We ask for a $5 - $10 suggested donation with no one turned away.

Wherever cattails grow in the world, all the way across the Northern Hemisphere, humans have had a relationship with them. We'll be trying a few dishes and making a few crafts with the various parts of cattails. Come share what you know and learn some more! No experience or knowledge necessary!

We would like to invite you to this month's Rewilding Skill Series. The Rewilding Free Skills Series is a class & networking event that happens monthly, that usually occurs (but not always) on the last Saturday of the month. It is a place for social networking where people make new friends and hang out with old friends learning skills to connect us with humanity's ancestral past and more local and sustainable future. We ask for a $5 - $10 suggested donation with no one turned away.

This month's theme is Stinging Nettle and Other Spring Greens. In late winter and early spring, many edible greens begin to emerge. Let's celebrate them by learning about them, how to encourage their growth, what roles they play in ecology, how to process and prepare them, and of course, how to eat them and what nutritional value they bring! Come to learn and share what you know. Find us at Picnic Area F, furthest parking lot, on the bike path just passed the bathrooms on the Columbia River side.

Looking for a way to get outside and make a difference in your community? Join Friends of Nadaka for our Community Planting Event to restore a healthy habitat at Nadaka Nature Park. Volunteers will be planting native shrubs like Oregon Grape, Thimbleberry, and Snowberry. Native plantings help filter pollutants, provide shade, and improve fish and wildlife habitat. Tools, plants, gloves, and light refreshments will be provided. Dress to work in natural areas: long pants, warm cloths, and closed-toe sturdy shoes. Please bring a water bottle and a friend! Activities include: Invasive Plant Removal, Native Planting.

Register online here: http://solveoregon.org/get-involved/events/nadaka-nature-park-community-...

Ma Olsen ran a small grocery store in downtown Linnton for much of the first half of the twentieth century. During the Depression she forgave bills, feeding folks in need. Her store was bulldozed in the early 60s, along with most of the buildings lining St Helens Road in Linnton, to widen the highway from two lanes to four. Not long after this Nora "Ma" Olsen, while crossing the highway, was hit, and killed by a car. A plaque, bench, and a Benson Bubbler were placed where the back of her store had been, and that swath of hill was named Ma Olsen's Garden. Forty-five years after her death, the steep hillside that was her Garden was overgrown with ivy, blackberry, and a tangle of fallen trees. We removed the thick green shroud that covered the garden and planted hundreds of native shrubs and flowers of over fifty species. Most of the five block long, seventy-five foot wide sliver of land, of which the Garden is the southern tip, remained buried under invasives. Why not extend the project north, since Linnton as "hanging garden" was the goal to begin with? So we roll along, the past two winters extending the garden another block, planting as we go. It's gnarly work, with established ivy, blackberry, vinca and laurel on rocky, steep, uneven slopes. Uncovering old stone walls, terraces, mundane and weird trash heaps, and poison oak keeps the work interesting, sometimes too much so. We're incubating plans for an tongue-in-cheek sculpture/Dr. Seuss garden in this section. We should be able to polish off the remaining weeds this winter, but we need an infusion of help and laughter. Activities include: Invasive Plant Removal.

Register online here: http://solveoregon.org/get-involved/events/ma-olsens-garden-extension-fe...