A Conservation Woodland in Oregon
It’s been fifteen years since we started our CREP conservation program, and every year has brought new challenges. In 2020 Climate Change became more than a theory… This year we have taken up the mission with renewed purpose. We are re-planting with an eye to what will survive in a hotter, unpredictable future, introducing greater diversity for habitat, and with the hope that some will ease the transition into the woodland to come.
Over a thousand Western Red Cedar and hundreds of Douglas Fir and Valley Pine were set in, along with understory trees and shrubs like vine maple, ninebark and spirea. The race was on for the sunlight. As our seedlings grew, they would create shade, and eventually their expanding branches would connect, forming a “closed canopy”, which in theory would suffocate the light hungry invasive species below. In the meantime, we had several years of battle ahead of us.
The first year of our CREP program was devoted to clearing the invasives. Because the program shared the cost of hiring brush clearing contractors, the worst areas were cleared in a matter of days by heavy equipment. While the contractors cleared the larger areas, there were hundreds of individual trees that had to be saved by hand, one by one. With clippers and machetes, we spent most of that year pulling clematis out of trees and whacking at the blackberries.
I found the resources we needed in our county soil and water conservation district. There are various programs offering assistance to property owners who want to “do the right thing” for the environment, and we chose to enroll our woods in the CREP program. CREP aims to improve water quality and improve wildlife habitat by establishing long term riparian buffers.
It seemed too late for our sad little woods. Entire trees towering 100 feet in the air were completely suffocated with thick wild clematis. Others were being slowly strangled by English Ivy. Thorny walls of Himalayan Blackberry 12 feet high made much of the woods impenetrable. Ever have a deep heart wish for something impossible? Every once in awhile, impossible things become possibilities.
