Come and Work and/or Walkabout at Twin Ponds Saturday, April 27, 2024

Story and photos by Meghan Peterka

About 5 years ago, 30 King County residents went through the Urban Forest Restoration Program. As a part of the program, the City of Shoreline provided the restoration sites for these stewards to work. Twin Ponds Park, on the intersection of 155th and 1st Ave NE was one of the parks chosen.

I wish we had taken pictures of the site before we began to do our restoration work. Since we do not have beforehand pictures, I will use my words to give you a visual.

Here is the NW entrance of Twin Ponds Park. It looks pretty good. Though, I want you to imagine a wall of Himalayan blackberries and creeping around and under, English Ivy. These have been removed since and have been replaced with NW native plants as well as a gravel path for the community to walk along.

Throughout this part of the park, our wonderful steward Marj Gillespy has created signage that educates the community about the different plant species that are growing in the site.

A couple of years into our work, we uncovered this gorgeous patch of native bleeding hearts. It has been exciting to find some preexisting native species that were covered by blackberries and ivy.

The canopy in the part of the park is mostly deciduous trees, speckled with evergreen trees, both established and newly planted.

The floor of this urban forest is littered with cones and leaves, waiting for decomposition to add nutrients to the soil.

Twin Ponds is teeming with life, in its soil, plants, trees, and waterways. 

Whether you've been there before or not, I invite you to join our stewardship team, at our next work party, on Saturday, April 27, 2024 from 9:30-12:30. Please bring gloves and a water bottle. We meet at the NW corner of the park. 

Everyone is welcome!

Come, come out to our work party, and/or come to walkabout.