Partners for Plants at the Baltimore Woods Lower Meadow

To volunteer at Baltimore Woods, you just need a bit of grit, sturdy boots, and a rain parka because the first instructions are about safety. Watch out for sharp rocks and boulders, divots, dips, and dells. In November, 15 Portland Garden Club (PGC) members met the challenge.

The transformation of the Lower Meadow of Baltimore Woods from an urban cemented wasteland to a natural habitat filled with native species and welcoming to raptors, critters, and hikers began about 22 years ago with a committed group of residents, that includes current active board members Jim Barnas, Barbara Quinn and Betsy Valle. Our Portland Garden Club (PGC) Conservation/PAA committee through the Garden Club of America’s (GCA’s) Partners for Plants Program is in the second year of working with The Friends of Baltimore Woods to continue this effort.

Luckily for us, our FOBW partners, along with Portland Parks, does all the soil prep and auguring. The plants, bulbs, and seeds are high priority species native to the Willamette Valley ecoregion and suitable to the dry, rocky soil. Seeds and bulbs were propagated during winter months by both FOBW and the PGC.

Liz Dally, who’s been FOBW’s coordinator with the Portland Garden Club (and whose tireless cataloging of seeds and plant material rivals that of the early botanists in the New World!), kept charts of the plants put into the ground that day.  They include:  Narrow-leaf Milkweed; Lomatium ‘Spring Gold’; Pine Bluegrass; Blue Bunch Wheatgrass; Blue Wild Rye; June Grass; Harvest Lily; and Dichelostemma congestum (Ookow).  Plant material was grown from seed by our two groups.

Additionally, Ivy Stovall, Nursery Director for Rewild Portland, gifted us a number of plants from Rewild’s Greenhouse at Green Anchors, on the Willamette River just below the meadow.  FOBW rented space at the greenhouse last year to propagate most of the plants for the meadow.

To cap off the PGC/FOBW collaborative meadow-ing party, Leah Passell and Caroline Skinner rounded up metal rabbit fence materials — and rounded up volunteers to install it! —  in order to keep the meadow’s furry plant nibblers out of the newly-planted beds.   Last year’s green plastic fencing seemed not specific enough to deter the critters.

The recent signs of coyotes patrolling the trail through the Lower Meadow indicate the fences may be the least of Flopsy and Mopsy’s worries.

By Marion Davis, PGC member and Jim Barnas, FOBW board