Washington Native Plant Society

Programs: Native plant public education and publications: washington native plant society staff and volunteers provide a broad suite of services to the public, 12 chapters, and more than 1,200 members statewide, who range from professional experts to enthusiastic novices. Serving as a voice for native plants, we published 3 issues of our flagship journal, douglasia. We co-hosted an intensive 3-day grasses education workshop, hosted 130 members at a sold-out annual study weekend in northeast washington, and partnered with the university of washington herbarium at the burke museum to offer a weekends worth of field trips, workshops, and programs at botany washington in leavenworth. Statewide, our chapters offered 9 native plant sales, 61 speaker programs, and 105 field trips.

native plant stewardship program: the native plant stewardship program trains volunteers so they have the knowledge and abilities to complete native plant restoration projects in their communities. In 2017, we partnered with the city of shoreline to train 25 new stewards, who received 100 hours of classroom and field experience. Working with the green seattle partnership, we offered existing stewards a continuing education program. Expanding our geographical reach, we piloted 30-hour stewardship programs in wenatchee (focused on shrub-steppe ecosystems) and bellingham (focused on shoreline and lowland puget sound forest ecosystems).

native plant grants program: the standing committees of the washington native plant society award grants annually in conservation, education, and research and plant inventory. Several chapters award grants in their local areas as well. In 2017, as in previous years, applications for these grants exceeded available funds. Near burien, local students and community members worked together to restore a neighborhood pond. In pasco, a sagebrush restoration project took 4th and 5th graders out in the field. On the olympic peninsula, a grant helped continue coastal plant conservation work. We continued supporting the revision of the "flora of the pacific northwest" with grants to the university of washington herbarium at the burke museum