A group of volunteers began work on a neighborhood-beautification project in Vancouver’s Riveridge neighborhood on Saturday morning.
The job? Transform a cul-de-sac island long overrun with invasive ivy and weeds into a biodiverse native habitat for local birds, small mammals and insects to call home.
Gary Zacny, the leader of the project and the chair of the Vancouver Good Neighbor Committee, said his inspiration for the project stemmed from Douglas Tallamy’s book “Nature’s Best Hope.” The book, he said, details how replanting native plants and prioritizing biodiversity in one’s own backyard is a huge step toward creating more sustainable ecosystems in our neighborhoods.
“You look at all these English lawns and the English ivy, they aren’t supposed to be here,” he said. “We want to plant things that will invite those native animals back.”
While Zacny supervised the project, he noted that the brain behind how the island would be laid out belonged to Laura Demory, a local gardener with a reputation among neighbors for her work.
Demory said she’s spent a lot of time working on her own garden throughout the pandemic, and this new project was an exciting — but perhaps a bit daunting — new challenge.
“There’s more pressure,” she said, laughing. “Because it belongs to the city, I have to keep in mind what the city would approve and make it as low maintenance as possible so that it needs as little intervention as possible.”
Adding things like drought-tolerant plants and natural paths for water to flow through the space, Demory said, will help the island retain year-round interest without constant upkeep.
The morning’s heavy rain proved no match for the dozen or so workers, who started by moving small boulders in teams into the center of the space. The next step will be to plant native flora such as Oregon grape, vine maple and snowberries. Other neighbors chipped in by bringing their own plants to include, as well as tools for digging and clearing debris.
In the previous weeks and months, the team had worked to fully clear the circle of the ivy and brambles that once populated it and refill it with 10 cubic yards of soil that could support the new ecosystem. In addition to Saturday’s work, neighbors will continue to contribute time and maintenance work until the island resembles the colorful design Demory drew up.
The project was primarily funded by a grant from the Watershed Alliance of Southwest Washington, which regularly enlists and organizes volunteers to help restore habitats in urban and suburban areas throughout the region.
“This is our opportunity to get rid of a neighborhood nuisance and create in its place a bird-friendly habitat,” Zacny said. “It has been rewarding to see so many people and organizations join to transform a scruffy traffic circle into a climate-friendly oasis.”
