The Native Plant Nursery program works closely with other park programs to restore and preserve the native ecology of parklands and to build a strong and vibrant community of park stewards. Over 1 million seeds are collected each year between the six nursery sites. These seeds are used to propagate over 400 of the 622 species native to the parks.
This year alone, the Nurseries will be propagating about 270,000 plants for the 2012 growing season for 53 different habitat restoration projects throughout the 75,000 acres of parkland.
Native Plant Nursery key goals:
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To produce high-quality container plants needed for park restoration from seed or other propagules collected from local, watershed-specific plants.
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To create and foster a volunteer program that serves community needs for ecological recreation and builds a constituency around an ethic of restoration and stewardship.
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To educate community members, especially youth, about the concepts of community, ecology, and horticulture using the nurseries as hands-on experiential classrooms.
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To do quality research into proper propagation methods of hard-to-grow—and sometimes rare—native species.
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Native Plant Nurseries Education Programs