Mission: Native Plant Restoration With Volunteers
Linda Rohleder launched Wild Woods Restoration Project to work with volunteers on restoring native plants, as their disappearance creates widespread ecological trouble.
Linda Rohleder gathers volunteers to foster native plants as the result of a moment’s insight she had 30 years ago, having little to do with the abstractions of computer science she initially studied in college. The moment, leading to her pursuit of a Ph.D. in ecology at Rutgers, had much more to do with the realities she laterencountered working with the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, managing invasive species with volunteer crews.
She was on Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania on a service trip with the Sierra Club to remove invasive plants from an area. After her group finished their work, she looked around.
“There was nothing left. Invasives had smothered all that should have been there,” Rohleder said.
That encroachment on native plant territory has extensive consequences, she realized.
“The food system is based on plants eaten by insects that are eaten by birds,” said Rohleder. “But insects are specialized. They can’t survive on invasives, so they’ve been diminishing. Getting native plants back is essential. We preserve native plants by collecting seeds and reintroducing them in parks and preserves through collaborations. I focus on preserved areas, so restoration stays, with native plants establishing themselves and seeds propagating.”
For this purpose, Rohleder created the Wild Woods Restoration Project, which became a nonprofit in February 2022, assembling volunteers who gather seeds that Rohleder starts at home in Salisbury Mills, then brings back in flats to have volunteers pot and grow until ready for planting in preserves and parks.
Although Rohleder lives in Salisbury Mills and has done restoration projects close to home, she works with collaborators to collect seeds throughout the region. On July 15, she will be delivering flats with seedlings for fostering to volunteers in Sussex County.
“We’re ramping up gradually, collecting seeds around the region for diverse native plants, focusing on the understory where invasives and deer are a problem,” she said. “Others focus on showy pollinators. We focus on parks, where they lack staff and resources. If parks try to control and remove invasives, we get volunteers to gather seeds and come in afterward to restore natives, like a reward.”
Rohleder and volunteers also “rescue” plants from places where they will otherwise be dug up and discarded. In September, to be set by a poll of volunteers, she plans to have an event to collect seeds and plants in Milford, PA, on property that will be cleared for building, so they can re-establish the plants in a preserved area.
“We’ll pot up young white pine and blueberry bushes and use them elsewhere,” she said. “We’ve only existed for two years, but others have succeeded with rescuing and transplanting. We’ve done it small scale in Black Creek Preserve. Restoration takes multiple years. If parks reduce deer damage with hunting programs and fenced off areas, once natives are established, they tend to stay.”plants that can be grown, sowing seeds on her property, where she and her husband, Richard Pillar, a retired landscape architect, have been growing native plants for several years.
“We get the seeds past the vulnerable tiny seedling stage and then give them to volunteers to grow,” she said. “Most have never grown plants before. We had high school kids grow plants last year. You don’t need much space. People living in apartments grow them on balconies.”
Rohleder has seedling flat pickup days for volunteers in various places. On July 15, she will drop off seedlings at a location in Vernon, New Jersey. Volunteers can sign up for that and other events at https://wildwoodsrestorationproject.org/events/.
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