Our Native Plant Nursery

Background - Building The Nursery

The Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation received a grant of $5400 from the Contra Costa County Fish and Wildlife Committee to build a native plant nursery for our restoration work. We accomplished this with the leadership of a landscape contractor friend, Don Mount, and all volunteer labor from our Tuesday group. The City of Walnut Creek gave us a small plot of land behind the Shadelands Art Center and a water connection. The project took nine months – September 2009 to June 2010 – because we had to keep up with our regular habitat restoration work as well. After a break, we had one final work day in September 2010 to assemble the shed before winter came. The following slideshow tells the story of how the nursery came together:

Current Nursery Activities

Every year we collect native seeds from the Open Spaces (as allowed by our City granted permit) and propogate them in our nursery. There are six raised beds which are almost always full of various species. We spare as much time as we can in between restoration projects to pot plants, weed, and do general maintenance. We have three composting bin all at different stages of decomposition to add nutrients to the donated soil we receive. Nearly all the plants used on our restoration efforts come from this nursery.