Natural celebration

Native wild ginger, supplemental watering and Shoreline’s Community Wildlife Habitat Project were topics of conversation July 29 at the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden where over 100 people celebrated the city’s commitment to becoming a certified wildlife habitat.

Sponsored by Sustainable Shoreline, the goal of the project is to meet National Wildlife Federation’s community certification requirements by certifying 500 backyard or balcony habitats, three demonstration gardens, five schoolyards and ten businesses as wildlife habitats.

In order for a yard to be certified as a wildlife habitat it must satisfy four basic requirements: provide water, food, shelter and a place to raise young. Seeds, berries, nectar, pollen from plants, trees or a bird feeder provide food, while a birdbath, shallow dish, pond, stream wetland or lakeshore provide water. Shelter can be provided by dense vegetation or a rock pile and a place to raise young can be in the form of trees, shrubs, ponds and nesting boxes. The requirements for the number of certified habitats within a community are based on the city’s population size.

“Just having some dishes of water or a drip makes a huge difference,” Don Norman of Go Natives! Nursery told a group of 30 people touring the upper portion of the garden. “Successful yards in this program have this feature.”

Throughout a tour of the lower portion of the garden, Dr. Art Kruckeberg pointed out many trees, including the native Black Cottonwood. It seeds, he said, drifted into his lab at the University of Washington and germinated on his research pod.

“I’ve been advocating substituting the use of the word ‘yard’ with ‘garden’ for years,” Kruckeberg said. “Did you know that according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a yard is where you exercise horses and prisoners?”

After the tours, Kruckeberg formally introduced the four-acre garden he and his late wife, Mareen, created over the past 50 years.

Kruckeberg said he took part in the international seed exchange program when he acquired the property in 1958. Plants from Eastern Asia, New Zealand, and South America were eventually coupled with an expanding native plant collection Kruckeberg called “not only aesthetically pleasing but historically accurate.”

Gretchen Muller, from the Seattle office of the National Wildlife Federation, said the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden was the perfect site for the celebration.

“The Puget Sound is leading the nation in the greatest number of community backyard habitats,” she said. “There’s a really strong, passionate habitat team in Shoreline.”

Habitat team coordinator Boni Biery said 100 backyards have already been certified and though schools and businesses have not yet been certified, the project has only begun and she feels it is off to a great start.

“It will be a little while,” Biery said. “But I’ve spoken with some and they are very interested.”

Biery said the Shoreline habitat team plans to get more people involved with the project by speaking at neighborhood meetings.

Shoreline residents Cecily Caplan and Ken Winnick went to the kick-off celebration to learn more about how they could be involved in the city.

“It’s very inspiring to see what everyone is doing,” Caplan, who saw the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden for the first time, said. She added that she may bring up the project at her next condominium association meeting.

Shoreline is one of eight cities in Washington that is currently registered as working toward becoming a community wildlife habitat. In April the city of Lake Forest Park was officially recognized as the 21st community wildlife habitat in the nation having certified 165 Lake Forest Park properties, two businesses, five city parks and two elementary schools over the course of three years.

More information about Shoreline’s Community Wildlife Habitat Project, including ways to volunteer can be obtained by calling 206-368-0858 or by e-mail at birdsbeesfishtrees@gmail.com. Applications are available from the Shoreline habitat team or at www.NWF.org/backyardwildlifehabitat.