Helping Hands at Hillwood Park

Glitter Girls Camp Fire group pulls invasive grasses
at Hillwood Park. Photo by Boni Bieri

By Boni Bieri

On last Monday afternoon, June 1, the Wetland Meadow Project in Hillwood Park got help from the Glitter Girls Camp Fire Group.

Lots of small plantings put in last fall were being overwhelmed by an early crop of unwanted velvet grass. It is one of the “turf” grasses that will hopefully be replaced by native wetland grasses and flowers in the future.

This small group of girls, ranging from 8 to 10 years in age, stepped right in and started pulling. An hour later much of the velvet grass was no longer standing so tall.

Many of the big seed heads were gone. Removing all those seeds will avoid the generation of that many more to pull in the future. The girls were so attentive about watching where they walked to avoid injuring the young plantings and focused on pulling the velvet grass; leaving the native grasses to continue to grow.

It was wonderful to have them help. And they were happy to help on the project that will be a meadow they helped create by the time they attend Einstein Middle School next door.

The Hillwood Community Network began this project more than a year ago. This little creek that runs through Hillwood Park continues on to Pan Terra, the water retention area at Dayton and Richmond Beach Road and then heads out where it empties into Boeing Creek and then Puget Sound. 

By planting wetland plants in the stream buffer, they will develop very deep roots that will pull water deep into the ground and help to meter the flow of water that currently rushes into Boeing Creek with each storm event. This will reduce the scouring of Boeing Creek and make it easier for fish too.

It’s a great way to help calm the effects of big rains while also providing the park with a wonderful meadow we can all enjoy; full of native grasses and flowering plants that will encourage birds with lots of pollen, nectar and seeds.

With habitat loss being the number reason we are losing species, it’s nice to invite birds to the neighborhood with some high quality habitat instead!

Last fall a local bird survey was done at the project site which identified 61 birds, from 15 species in just 3 hours.  

In three years from now, we expect there will be both more individual birds and more species.  If you would like to be part of helping this to happen, join us the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month through September for just two hours:10am to noon. Bring your gloves and help us make this transformation.

The Glitter Girls did, you can too.