Juanita Woodlands is a 40 acre King County Park within Kirkland in the Finn Hill Neighborhood. A couple of decades ago these forty acres were scheduled to be sold for development. The community valued their green open space and banded together to save it in perpetuity. King County Parks agreed to participate as steward of the area. Juanita Woodlands has many of the problems of urban forests, including invasive plants and root rot causing many trees to die and fall (including a couple Doug Fir that hit one of the houses). The neighborhood sponsored a careful study of the woodlands and developed a plan for improving the forest health. In the area we worked, a number of dying Douglas Firs have been cut and a couple of thousand young trees (cedar and shore pine) have been planted by the neighbors in volunteer gatherings about five years ago.
Forests need to have diversity in order to be healthy and thrive, and to support native wildlife. When forests are thriving, they can they can provide many benefits to our community like filtering pollution, mitigating erosion and storm damage and providing habitat for wildlife and green spaces where people can connect with nature and the outdoors.
Aggressive noxious weeds like English Ivy and Himalayan Blackberry were brought to this area and planted by for their desirable characteristics of staying green all year round or tasty fruits. These plants have upset the balance that our forests need to survive and thrive. Removing these aggressive plants and planting native plants can help restore the balance to a damaged ecosystem.
Sign up to volunteer removing invasives and to help plant seedlings in Finn Hill parks, use the contact form at the top of the page.
