Call for Pledges
We are putting together grant proposals for a project to restore the final unrestored 1.5 acre SE corner of Madrona Woods. We also plan to add a kiosk and some interpretive signs. As part of applying for a Department of Neighborhoods grant, we need pledges of volunteer hours from community members. Anyone who is willing to pledge time to do any of the following:
- Restoration work: clearing and planting
- Fundraising
- Social media (Facebook??)
- Work party food
- Sign design
- Plant selection
- Ideas for what to do with the car when we uncover it.
Please contact Peter Mason at 388-6490, peterma5 at msn dot com.
There will be more details here about this project as it proceeds.
Daylighting – A Stream Runs Through It
May 3, 2011 by adminFMW · Comments Off on Daylighting – A Stream Runs Through It
Filed under: Projects
Filed under: Projects
A spring-fed stream now flows from the steep ravine above Madrona Woods, under 38th Avenue in a pipe, through the Woods in the ravine along Spring Street, under Lake Washington Boulevard, through Madrona Park’s restored natural area and into Lake Washington at a newly created wetland cove. Salmon are likely to find Madrona Park Creek too small for spawning, but their young can rest under sheltering shrubs in the quiet cove or several small pools and feed on the nutrients brought down by the stream before continuing on their way up Lake Washington and out to the Sound in May and June.
Welcome to Madrona Woods
Since 1998, Friends of Madrona Woods has teamed up with the Green Seattle Partnership to turn this nine-acre urban forest into a welcoming place for people and wildlife and to encourage its return to a more natural and sustainable state. This has involved clearing invasive ivy, holly, laurel, clematis and blackberry and revegetating with native trees, shrubs, and ground covers. We have also reworked the trails system, and daylighted two streams. In the process of stream daylighting, FOMW added the Madrona Ravine west of 38th Avenue and a new natural area and cove in Madrona Park to its stewardship, bringing our total acreage to over 10.5.
Students Lend Welcome Hands
Students from the University of Washington and Garfield High School will be helping us clear new areas now that the creek daylighting project is finished except for more planting and continuing maintenance.
A team from the University of Washington’s Restoration Ecology Network Capstone Program has chosen to work with Friends of Madrona Woods to clear invasives and revegetate the east edge of Madrona Woods along Lake Washington Boulevard during the 2009-2010 academic year. They have been working on design and preparation during the fall and will begin supervising work parties to clear and plant during the next two quarters. They are looking into the possibility of redirecting the spring water that often collects on the Boulevard and connecting it to the daylighted stream.
Students from the Garfield High School after school Earth Service Corps will be coming the second Sunday afternoon each month during the school year to clear and plant along the sidewalk connecting Spring/Grand to the Boulevard. Students from other area high schools may be joining them. Community residents are also welcome. They gather at 1:00 at the tool box at Spring and Grand.
Celebration
We did it!
Friends of Madrona Woods called the community out on a sunny July day to celebrate the completion of the Madrona Park Creek daylighting!
About 25 neighbors and supporters joined members of the FOMW board and Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher to swap tales of restoration present and past, listen to brief speeches, and eat cookies with lemonade while looking over the new Madrona Park wetland cove. Then several enjoyed a tour of the daylighted stream and part of Madrona Woods. Pictured with Superintendent Gallagher (far right) are board members (left to right) Ann Bucher, Joan Scott, Bill Scott, Paul Beveridge, Michael Quirk, Deirdre McCrary, and Judith Starbuck. Missing were John Lahti, John and Betsy Darrah, and Peg Gaynor, landscape architect and consultant.
Spring Native Plant Walk
Join Friends of Madrona Woods, Seattle Urban Nature, and Eastside Audubon for a walk through Madrona Park at 10:00 a.m., Sunday, April 26. See and hear about the latest restoration projects, admire native plants as they leaf and bud, and maybe play a game to develop observation skills. The Madrona community is invited; bring the whole family. Meet on the sidewalk by the pond east of Lake Washington Boulevard in the new natural area.
Madrona Park Creek Daylighting Is Complete
March 9, 2009 by adminFMW · Comments Off on Madrona Park Creek Daylighting Is Complete
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
With the addition of the stream flow from the Madrona Ravine above 38th Street in October, the completion of the bridge over the stream at the main trail entrance at Spring and Grand in January, and the planting of thousands of native trees, shrubs, and ground covers in March, the Madrona Park Creek Daylighting is essentially complete. Only maintenance continues to be a Friends of Madrona Woods responsibility for three more years. The stream is flowing as predicted from the springs above 38th to the lake at the cove. Its fresh, cold water is expected to attract salmon fry as they migrate from their spawning streams to Puget Sound past the “rearing and refuge” offered by the restored stream and ponds on both sides of Lake Washington Boulevard.
For a tour of the creek, start at the overlook at the curve where 38th Street goes through the woods. Looking uphill you’ll see the stream emerging from the vegetation on the hillside. It enters the pipe under the road installed last fall and emerges at a lovely rock cascade on the other side of the hill. Walk down 38th and you’ll see where it tumbles down log-weir steps to the wetland just before. A simple bridge crosses it there so you can walk up Jack’s Trail into the woods there if you choose. Or continue down to the bottom of the hill (38th becomes Spring and then Grand) to the new bridge that allows you to enter the woods at the main entrance there. Stand on the bridge to watch the creek flowing on down to the pond on the west side of Lake Washington Boulevard. Be sure to listen to the music the creek makes at every stop. From Spring and Grand, take the sidewalk down to the Boulevard and go across to enter the natural area just a little to the left. Walk along the trail in either direction (or both) to view the cove and the stream running down to the lake. Don’t forget to go along the main sidewalk a little south of the entrance to see the pond on the east side of the Boulevard.
WNPS talk about daylighting
January 15, 2009 by adminFMW · Comments Off on WNPS talk about daylighting
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
Last week Peter Mason gave a brief talk about the daylighting project to the Washington Native Plant Society’s Central Puget Sound chapter.
The Little Stream That Could
November 10, 2008 by adminFMW · Comments Off on The Little Stream That Could
Filed under: Daylighting
Filed under: Daylighting
The long-awaited Madrona Park Creek was released in the Madrona Park Ravine on October 24 and reached Lake Washington a couple of days later. It has been growing in quantity and beauty ever since. It no longer takes a huge stretch of the imagination to envision small salmon making their way up from the lake as far as the pond on the west side of Lake Washington Boulevard.
Come hear for yourself the amazing sounds it makes. Look and listen from the little overlook at the curve on 38th, or walk down 38th and listen to the splashing where the pipe under the street comes out of the hillside to drop over a beautiful rock feature into the Madrona Woods ravine. Stop at the 38th and Spring bridge to admire, and then go all the way down to stand on the bridge in the natural area by the lake. You’ll get the views from the other direction as you huff and puff back up the hill.
The next project is getting the bridge across the main trail at the Spring Street entrance. We’re getting bids for the footers as I write and hope to be able to re-open the trail in the next couple of months. We’re also going to be doing some repair and maintenance on the other trails.
Planting and mulching time is now here. Let Deirdre McCrary at deirdre_jaymccrary@msn.com know if you’d like to be notified by email of our work parties. Typically they’re the third Saturday of each month from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Meet at the toolbox at the Spring Street entrance (Spring & Grand).
For more information about activities in the Woods and natural area and ways you can get involved, contact me, judithstarbuck@msn.com or 322-2640 or visit our website at www.madronawoods.org.
Glad and sad tidings
First the good news. We’re grateful for the welcome help we’ve gotten from several groups this fall, including Washington Mutual on the Day of Caring; Seattle Pacific City Quest, a service project designed by SPU to help incoming freshmen get to know each other while they help others; and the UW Accounting Fraternity, Beta Alpha Psi, Delta Chapter. Their hard work has given us a big boost in the clearing and mulching we need to do along the Spring Street section of the ravine in conjunction with the creek daylighting. And six students from Seattle Girls School will be working weekly in the woods this fall as part of the school’s internship program.
We’ve started soliciting bids from possible contractors so we can start culvert and cove construction for the daylighting in March. We’ve recently purchased the plastic lumber and other lumber we’ll need for the three bridges and railings in that project with a $20,000 grant we got from the King County Council for 2006.
The sad news is that Ann Lennartz, one of the founders of our Friends of Madrona Woods group ten years ago, died September 6, 2006. Without her continuing dedication and support, we would certainly not have achieved nearly as much as we have in our restoration and education efforts. The Starflower Foundation, which she started after she left the Madrona Woods Board, gave us grants to purchase plants and cover landscape architect planning and provided naturalists to help us plan and staff our environmental education program during the formative years. She went on to start Seattle Urban Nature, which has surveyed habitat on Seattle’s public lands so the city and citizens can now better manage our open spaces.