Spring Planting at the WPP Becomes an International Event
A spring planting gathering at the Wetland Peace Preserve (WPP) was assembled by Laurie Zuckerman on Saturday March 25. The weather was sunny but cool as we were led by the volunteer coordinator and plant botanist Kristin Gnojewski from Boise Parks and Rec. The preserve looked like it was in good shape with all of the recent snow and rain serving to effectively water the 600+ plants that Rotarians have already planted there. Kristin had brought us ~25 bitterbrush starts and about 300 Sandberg Bluegrass seedlings to place in the WPP. The crew numbered about 25-30 as we dove into our planting duties.
We had a delightful surprise in that 8 of our number were from a visiting team from Brazil. They brought with them a couple translators from the US Department of State. They are on a long trip throughout the USA and were in Boise for 4-5 days due to the efforts of Mowbray Brown from the Boise Southwest club. They worked hard and left with a number of pleasant memories and several transplanted items that they planted with their own hands. The crew was to be featured in a Brazilian magazine article soon. And one of their members, Mauricio, had been involved with the planting of over 4 million trees in Brazil.
After we got all of the plants transplanted and mulched, Kristin led a hike around the WPP. She explained a lot about the types of desirable plants and pollinators and birds that we hoped would visit the WPP with all of this new foliage. John Lodal from Boise Sunrise was able to provide design details for the WPP that allowed the Brazilian team to more specifically imagine what the preserve would eventually look like.
The WPP is moving forward with a new and more scaled back design given recent conversations with the Willow Lane neighbors. The steering committee will have more to share on relevant development details in the near future. We are very glad that we had the chance to add to the plant numbers that Rotary has placed in the WPP recently. And we made a number of new friends from Brazil in a truly serendipitous manner. We crossed paths and we left it better than we found it by working together with a clear intent of Service Above Self.
What a great day!
