| Volunteer with Conservation Committee |
The East Bay CNPS conservation committee is always looking for new volunteers to help save the common and rare plant species and communities in the East Bay. There are various ways you can help. You can alert the committee about planning documents that affect the local flora, by “adopting a site.” You can attend your local city council meetings as a CNPS representative (fully supported by CNPS staff or on your own). You can help review environmental documents that pertain to areas you are familiar with. Or you can participate solely by email, weighing in with your expertise when questions arise (and they arise on a daily basis). Help turn the conservation program from re-active to pro-active.
Please contact the conservation committee chair Laura Baker, with any questions.
Interested in Volunteering?
Please contact Delia Taylor
Volunteer Coordinator
How to Participate
Native Here
101 Golf Course Drive, Berkeley, CA 94708
510-549-0211
nativehere@ebcnps.org
Open Tuesdays noon-3 pm, Fridays 9 am-noon, Saturdays 10 am-2 pm
Volunteer opportunities and ways to help the nursery:
• Come buy plants throughout the year. Different species are available each season as they emerge from dormancy or a new collection of seeds germinate. Books, metal plant labels for gardens, and other items are also for sale. Nursery sales are an important source of income for the chapter.
• Help collect seeds and cuttings. A small group sets out from the nursery once a week from May through October, and more occasionally the rest of the year. May-October, 2010 seed collection will be Tuesday mornings. If you would like to be on an e-mail distribution list to receive notice of each week’s destination, please send an e-mail request to nativehere@ebcnps.org
• Volunteers are welcome to adopt a section to water and weed. Plants need tending year-round. When it is hot or windy, the soil around the plants needs to be watered twice a week. We hand water, about a cup per gallon can of soil during the summer. If frost is immanent, we need to be sure both the soil and the foliage are wet to prevent frost damage. Show up when the nursery is open or e-mail us to arrange other volunteer times
• Volunteers help replenish stock by “potting up” plants into increasingly larger containers, transplanting seedlings and rooted cuttings.
• Donate plant containers and Native Here plant labels for reuse. We accept used pots and labels during our open hours. Those we do not reuse are put in the bin just outside the top gate. Anyone is welcome to take pots from that bin for their own planting projects.
• Volunteer to keep the nursery open on Sundays. If volunteers are available, the hours of the nursery could be extended. Those times we have been open on Sundays, many people come in who didn’t know about the nursery before.
• Visit the Native Here Nursery page on Facebook. Find out what is happening at the nursery that week. Pictures, notices of things that are ripe for planting, wildlife observations, and other up-to-the-minute information will be posted.
The Unusual Plants Committee still needs people to look for and monitor plants in several parts of the East Bay: Chabot Regional Park, Redwood Regional Park, Black Diamond Regional Preserve, Byron Hot Springs area, Delta area, Garin/Dry Creek Pioneer Regional Park, Niles Canyon, Tassajara Creek Regional Park, Bishop Ranch Regional Park, Vasco Caves Regional Preserve, and the Corral Hollow area
Volunteers are also needed to research and pursue identification and distribution questions for several species including: Amsinckia vernicosa, Amsinckia tessellata, Collinsia bartsiifolia, Centromadia pungens (Hemizonia pungens in the Jepson Manual), Elymus elymoides (and other Elymus species), Trifolium albopurpureum, Solanum xantii, Stephanomeria virgata, and Stephanomeria elata. Some of these could make excellent graduate student research projects.
Finally, volunteers are still needed to look for individual species at different places. We can send you a list of species to choose from, or if there is a particular species, genus or family that you are already interested in, we can provide you with places where they need to be monitored and historical sites that need to be checked to see if they still occur there.
If you would like to help, please contact Dianne Lake, diannelake@yahoo.com. Botanical knowledge and familiarity with the local flora is preferred, but not essential. Amateur wildflower enthusiasts can help too.