By Jaal Mann, Graduate Research Assistant

This past week Shotwell’s Landing hosted visitors from the USFWS, Dr. Karla Drewson and Ted Thomas, and David Hays from WDFW. They admired the more than 100,000 plants for fall plant out and marveled at the amount of seed being cleaned and processed for the restoration of Puget lowland prairies. The site visit also coincided with a work day for the offender technicians. The technicians apprised the visitors of the cultivation techniques for some of the 26 species of native prairie plants grown at Shotwell’s Landing.

Shotwell’s Landing nursery has always been a highly collaborative site for SPP, serving as a hub for seed cleaning, storage, and plant distribution to our many partners.

David Hays (WDFW), Karla Drewson (USFWS), and Ted Thomas (USFWS) discuss Castilleja miniata (giant red Indian paintbrush) plants for prairie propagation.

At the heart of SPP’s work at Shotwell’s Landing lies the partnership between the Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM) and SPP. CNLM owns the site and manages seed production and cleaning, and SPP manages plant production for both direct planting on the prairies and future seed production. Offender technician crews from Cedar Creek Corrections Center provide essential assistance at Shotwell’s Landing to all partners (as well as at several other prairie restoration sites around the area).

Key partners who use plant materials produced and processed at Shotwell’s Landing include the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Ted Thomas and Karla Drewson, USFWS, stopped to discuss the planting of wild Virginia strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) with SPP graduate research assistant Drissia Ras and an inmate from Cedar Creek Corrections Center. These plants will be used for planting on prairies in endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly habitat.