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"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

Grey Owl Forest Restoration is a partnership dedicated to the rehabilitation of Pacific Northwest forest land. King County stands in the place of what used to be thousand-year-old Cedar and Douglas Fir forests with complex ecosystems under their canopies. Our land still has the stumps of these former giants, complete with spring-board slots still dotting the properties. We have joined a growing army of small landowners who dream of restoring old-growth ecosystems within urban and suburban environments.

Our Mission

While GreyOwl is a relatively new entity, the spirit and work behind our goals are decades old. Our team was inspired by the old-growth cedar stumps dotting the south King County landscape. These are the remnants of 500+ year-old trees that fell en masse in the early 1900s. Subsequent secondary logging and development rendered the landscape into what many of the 1940s-era residents referred to as “like the moon”. Bulldozers finished off much of the remaining original habitat over the subsequent decades. However; nature is resilient. Newer firs and cedars are approaching 50-70 years old. Though development continues, there remains pockets of forest across the lower Salish Sea basin (S. King County and Pierce County). Many of these forests are under extreme duress. Invasive plant species such as English Ivy and Himalayan Blackberry (HBB) overwhelm the understory preventing seeds from germinating and native undergrowth from flourishing. The ivy is also an aggressive consumer of water exaggerating drought and further stressing existing trees (particularly Hemlocks). It is this backdrop that a small group of passionate individuals began removing ivy, HBB as well as laurel and holly. The mats of ivy hide unhealthy, sterile clay requiring soil rehabilitation. We are accelerating the natural process by adding maple leaves, fallen alder, and chipped branches to recreate a more resilient forest floor. Leveraging the county conservation district native plant sales and saving, then fostering neighborhood native seedlings, we have started the generations-long process to return these small, fragmented wooded areas into fledgling native ecosystems.

Our Goals

To date, we have completed phase 1 and 2 rehabilitation on 4 acres of private land (P1 – invasive removal, P2 – tree planting and soil rehab). This is a labor-intensive effort that will struggle to keep pace with invasive growth without creating scalable processes, and techniques and utilizing landscaping contractors.

Our aim is to raise donations and grant funding to hire contractors and attract volunteers to complete phase 1 projects across south King County (focusing on Three Tree Point to Des Moines Marina initially). In addition to funding new removal projects, we will accelerate local municipal efforts (also moving painfully slowly) with contract removal support as well as linking private and public removal projects to create native, ecosystem corridors across the region. Funding will also be used to purchase native trees and shrubs through the county conservation districts.

We have seen remarkable results from our limited efforts with the return of dozens of small mammal, bird, reptile, and insect species in newly recovered areas. This year marks the return of both a Rubber Boa and Pacific Tree Frog to the valley. Neither had been seen in a generation since the ivy took over.GreyOwl Forest Restoration needs your support to accelerate this process and help us set the foundation for the return of Old Growth forests to King County.

“To truly appreciate the meaning of life, plant trees under whose shade you shall never sit.” – various authors… because it’s a universal truth.

First, the invasives.

Picture of "The Spruce" by Cara Cormack

Washington has become home to very aggressive invasive species of plants that quickly dominate native habitats. English Ivy, Himalayan Blackberry, and English Laurel are at the top of a very long list of forest-strangling invasives. Full removal of a mature ivy infestation can take years per acre and require constant attention to prevent reintroduction.

2020 Ivy Pull Update

Picture of a GreyOwl LLC property by Charles. H
Before: Invasive ivy takeover!

As shown the Ivy, although beautiful, is completely suffocating this section of the local forest.

Picture of a GreyOwl LLC property by Charles. H
After: Forest floor Cleared of invasives

With the Ivy removed, old growth returning to its former glory is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Once the invasives are under control...

Recovering the soil so it retains nutrients and moisture through drought is crucial to developing a thriving understory. At nature’s pace, this process would take hundreds, if not thousands of years to build the soil capable of hosting a stable old-growth ecosystem. We’re just not that patient. We’ve supplemented the soil with logs, chipped branches, and leaves from surrounding properties to help accelerate this process. We leverage King, Pierce, and Thurston County native plant sales to reintroduce some of the diverse native species. As the soil is just the raw clay left behind from at least 2 logging cycles, bulldozers, and a generation of invasives, we have to supplement with irrigation throughout the drought season.

It's expensive, time consuming and often back-breaking… but as I tell each employee and volunteer after they plant their first tree; “this is how you live forever”.