Thesis Statement
Because of the terrain and natural vegetation of the Puget Lowlands, many tens of thousands of residential subdivisions have forests in their backyards. The owners of these properties have the opportunity to foster biodiversity and mitigate climate change by working to preserve the existing trees and improve the health of the forests. The work begins with preventing ivy from growing up trees. More complete forest restoration, depending on the individual property owner’s time and inclination, can include many further steps to control non-native and encourage native plants. The ultimate goal, a fully restored Puget Lowland ecosystem, consists of an enclosed canopy of mature native conifers shading an understory of native shrubs and groundcover plants that has sufficient density to slow the invasion of non-native plants.
About Me
I do not claim to be an expert in backyard forest restoration, but I have been doing the work pretty steadily since 2007. What I write about are just my experiences and some of the things I have learned for myself, working in the forest to remove invasive plants and restore natives.
Land Acknowledgement
Land Acknowledgment: I respectfully acknowledge that I am working to restore forests on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish Tribes and other tribes of the Pacific Northwest.
© 2024, Backyard Forest Restoration, all rights reserved.
All photos and posts by John Emery Davis unless otherwise noted.