Reflections on A Restored Peat Fen, Seattle
Leader: Scott Blackstock, Roxhill Park Forest Steward
Saturday, October 12, 2:00 pm-4:00 pm

Join Roxhill Park’s steward, Scott Blackstock, in reflection on this urban natural area at the headwaters of Longfellow Creek years after a massive restoration project. In 1999 community volunteers began the conversion of a soggy park lawn to a restored ‘bog’. In an 8 year period hundreds of volunteers spent thousands of hours planting over 300 species of native plants creating a fen, meadow and woodland. At this natural area you can find some rare and interesting species. In autumn see the leaf and berry coloration of highbush cranberry, the leaf structure of scouler’s corydalis, seed heads of slough sedge, and smell the late season aroma of sweet gale. See if you can identify bog rosemary by remaining leaves and seeds, and bog birch by slow growth.See if the leaf’s orange underside changes on labrador tea, if the flat petiole of quaking aspen is loosening from the branch, if the needles of western larch are starting to fall, or if there are any remaining signs of camas. Check out Starflower Foundation’s report on what plants were originally planted, and which were still there in 2007: http://www.wnps.org/restoration/documents/RH/RH_Stewardship.pdf. Feel free to print out the plant lists to see how plant communities have evolved.

Questions and sign up: Scott Blackstock,, 206-938-2114, scottie1039@aol.com