AMLT Native Plant Program - A Year in Review

By Rob Cuthrell, AMLT Director of Native Plant Stewardship

This year has been a constructive and significant one for AMLT’s Native Plant Program, with completion of fieldwork on our first major restoration grant project at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve, diversification of the native plants we have been working with, documentation of an endangered species in Año Nuevo State Park, creation of a new native plant garden at the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, and initiation of our second major land stewardship project at Pie Ranch. 

At Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve in Año Nuevo State Park, AMLT, the Santa Cruz District of State Parks, and the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District have partnered since 2017 on a project to reduce woody fuel loads and revitalize historic native coastal prairie habitat. AMLT’s Native Plant Program was initiated in early 2021, when Native Stewardship Corps members began working with Pie Ranch staff at the historic Cascade Ranch on Año Nuevo Point to propagate native plants for our organization’s first major restoration project. With support from a California Natural Resource Agency grant and a dedicated team of volunteers, AMLT set out to grow over 140,000 native coastal prairie plants at Cascade Ranch for seed production. 

Using seed harvested from our native plant beds, we have been working to create small tended “patches” of coastal prairie plants at Quiroste Valley, focusing on bare soil areas where burn piles had been processed to dispose of woody debris. Our goal is to create areas on the landscape where native plants are dense and well established enough to defend against invasions of exotic species. With strong support from our volunteer team, AMLT has exceeded the original goal for this project, planting over 140,000 native plants at Cascade Ranch and over 10,000 native plants at Quiroste Valley, producing over 150 pounds of native plant seed, and initiating over 250 small patches of native plants at Quiroste Valley since the beginning of the project. Since starting to work with about a dozen species of native plants in 2021, we have now branched out into working with about 50 species, including locally uncommon and rare plants. 

The importance of the contribution that volunteers have made to the work of our Native Plant Program cannot be overstated. Participants in the Native Plant Program Volunteer Team work with us on Mondays and Fridays as their schedules allow, each usually contributing 8-20 hours of work per month. Volunteer Team members help with every step of AMLT’s native plant work, from seeding plug trays in the greenhouse to harvesting seed and planting it at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve. In 2023 alone, members of the Volunteer Team contributed about 3500 hours to the work of AMLT, along with about 500 hours from other volunteers. Without this support, it would not have been possible for AMLT to meet our goals for our project at Quiroste Valley, given the challenges and disruptions we have faced since 2020. We are currently accepting applications for those who are interested in joining our Volunteer Team in 2024 (please follow this link for more details and instructions on how to apply)!

Although we are working on closing out the grant that supported this work, our program of revitalizing Indigenous land stewardship at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve will continue over the long term, for decades to come. We are continuing to tend the patches of native plants we have established by weeding them periodically, re-seeding them when needed, and encouraging establishment of native plants that come into the patches on their own. Our work with partners to steward and expand coastal prairies at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve has already had a transformative impact, with several acres that have been covered with mature shrubland and dense young Douglas fir forest since the 1990s converted back into coastal prairie. We will continue to tend these places to create demonstration areas illustrating the outcomes of an Indigenous approach to native coastal prairie stewardship. In the years ahead, these will be places for Tribe members to tend and harvest plants for traditional cultural purposes, as well as to teach others about Indigenous land stewardship, ethnobotany, and ecology. 

This year, AMLT Native Steward Esak Ordoñez has been working together with the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association and the Santa Cruz District of State Parks to develop a burn plan that will make it possible for AMLT to return cultural burning to Quiroste Valley for the first time since Spanish colonization. We hope to celebrate our first cultural burn in Quiroste Valley in fall 2024, employing a low intensity prairie fire to tend the new patches of native plants we have initiated. 

Other Native Plant Program highlights from 2023:

• Near the beginning of 2023, strong winter storms tore the cover off of the greenhouse we use for plant propagation and work space at Cascade Ranch, resulting in loss of thousands of native plant seedlings. With help from our partners at Pie Ranch, we regained use of the greenhouse in the spring. 

• In April, State Parks resource crews worked with AMLT Native Stewards and Amah Mutsun Tribe members to burn over 80 piles of Douglas fir for fuel reduction and coastal prairie revitalization at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve.

• During the spring and summer, AMLT staff and volunteers carried out vegetation surveys, bioblitzes, and rare plant surveys in Año Nuevo State Park. During one of our rare plant surveys, we confirmed the presence of the endangered San Francisco popcornflower (Plagiobothrys diffusus), which had not been observed locally for nearly 40 years. 

• Over the summer, we initiated our second major land stewardship project in the Año Nuevo area, which involves restoration work along about half a mile of the Green Oaks Creek riparian corridor and creation of a 150-200 yard native hedgerow at Pie Ranch. Through this project we will be planting a diverse array of local species in areas where mature eucalyptus trees were removed after the 2020 CZU fire. 

• Throughout 2023, AMLT partnered with Pie Ranch to host a series of “Weed ‘Em Out” volunteer events that focus on removing the thousands of eucalyptus seedlings and saplings that have sprouted in the riparian corridor of Cascade Creek since the 2020 CZU fire. After removal, the goal is to re-establish native riparian vegetation along the creek where possible. 

• In October, with support from the Native American Agriculture Fund, AMLT hosted a Tribal Community Event at Pie Ranch to introduce and connect Amah Mutsun Tribal Band members with our collaborative projects there. About thirty Tribe members attended, with many coming all the way from the Central Valley. As part of the event, we prepared California brome grass pinole porridge, which we cooked in the traditional way using hot rocks and ate with a mix of different nut and berry foods. 

• With support from the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, AMLT has initiated planting of a new native garden in the courtyard and in front of the museum. The garden, which will feature dozens of local native plant species along with information about their ecology and cultural uses, will be planted out over the weeks and months ahead.