PUBLICITY
Beyond our normal means of communication described in the volunteer recruitment section, we would seek additional forms of communication for increased publicity. The UW Farm has already offered to highlight the expansion project in their newsletter. We would also collaborate with the SEFS newsletter, Offshoots, to do a piece on us to promote the new hoop house, volunteer events and projects the interns are working on. Advertising our public plant sales on the HUB digital display will attract students, faculty, and staff that are not reached through other means, and will help us attract new customers and engage new volunteers from other campus departments.
Internally, we would develop a quarterly newsletter to update people on our listserv. We will continue to post pictures and events announcements to Facebook. We usually receive high response rates, 100-900 views and 1 or 2 new page likes, for pictures from work parties with students tagged in them.
OUTREACH & EDUCATIONAL GOALS
Our outreach is completely centered around the the student involvement described above with three different levels of educational goals: volunteers, interns, and nursery managers.
Volunteers
Weekly work parties will be advertised to the entire UW community as open events where anyone can drop in to learn about current nursery projects and lend a hand. These informal work parties will allow us to engage students, faculty, and staff that wouldn’t be interested in a long term internship position, but might still enjoy getting their hands dirty for a few hours.
With increased frequency, these work parties would significantly augment horticulturally focused learning opportunities on campus, where formal learning opportunities are limited. The two plant production courses are only offered in spring quarter and scheduling conflicts and limited class sizes reduce the accessibility of these courses for students. The SER nursery currently provides occasional opportunities for learning; by increasing our growing program and available hours, we would significantly increase the opportunities for students to engage in native plant production throughout the academic year.
Volunteer learning objectives include the benefits of using native plants in landscaping, plant care, and basic plant production methods. Yessler Swamp, UBNA, a rain garden, and the UW Farm pollinator project are all within short walking distance of the SER nursery, and will be used often to demonstrate the potential applications of native plants. Our hope is to engage the public in a conversation about the benefits of native plants and their many applications in our urban landscape.
Interns
Nursery managers will work with the interns to develop specific learning objectives. Experience for all interns will include plant production, propagation skills like scarification and stratification, plant ID, irrigation, and weeding. During the first phase of the project, interns will also make a significant contribution to the establishment of the nursery through constructing our physical structures, crafting our web presence, or helping us draft a business plan. Just as importantly, interns will practice skills that are more broadly applicable to all jobs such as working independently as well as in a team, attention to detail, communication, and time management.
Even as the nursery transitions into Phases II and III, internships will continue to be an important component of the program. Intern responsibilities will be focused on plant propagation and production, but other new and diverse learning opportunities are sure to become available. Researching, designing, and installing a rainwater catchment system on the roof of the hoop house is just one potential opportunity. Through these positions, we will continue to provide more intensive learning opportunities to students, supporting our mission of increasing the horticultural learning opportunities on campus.
Nursery Managers
The educational goals of the nursery managers and upper level horticulture students are centered around the skills necessary to set up a native plant nursery and educational resource center. In particular the nursery managers will learn how to put together a business plan to eventually make the nursery a “recharge center” or “self-sustaining” unit within the university. This will ensure the financial sustainability of the operation. The managers will learn how to interact with contractors to successfully build a hoop house on a budget and in a timely manner.
Plant production and propagation skills to be practiced are seed collection, cleaning, scarification, and stratification. The managers would also develop efficient systems for material and equipment purchases, soil orders, pot washing, record keeping, and plant sales. Bridget McNassar, the Nursery and Restoration Manager for Oxbow Farm and Education Center, a local non-profit native plant nursery, will serve as our plant propagation advisor.
The nursery co-managers will practice their volunteer and employee management skills through weekly work parties and overseeing quarterly interns. We anticipate that a valuable mentor-mentee relationship would be fostered between the quarterly interns and the nursery managers.
NURSERY SUPPORTERS
In addition to the restoration projects managed by SER-UW, our nursery has the inventory to supply plants to project-based restoration courses. These courses are the foundation of the ESRM and MEH programs and require the procurement of native plant materials. This is a considerable hurdle for professors and students because it is time consuming and difficult to deal with many different nurseries to source the plants. Since its first sale in March, the nursery has already supplied ESRM 473: Restoration of North America, two UW-REN capstone groups, and the Washington Park Arboretum with native plants, suggesting that there is a substantial demand for native plants beyond our own projects.
For phases II and III, plants will be produced to facilitate new projects with the Arboretum, campus grounds, and graduate projects from students of SEFS, College of the Built Environment and the biology department. By expanding the SER nursery as outlined in this proposal, many of these plant needs can be met right here on campus, eliminating the need and associated carbon costs of sourcing and picking up plants from off-campus nurseries. These projects will in turn be financially supporting the nursery, enabling us to grow the next round of native species and closing the native plant loop in a way that benefits everyone.