Alton Baker Park is most known for being the park many walk through to watch the Ducks play at Autzen Stadium. But Alton Baker is also the largest developed park in Eugene since 1959, and offers plenty of recreational features for residents and UO students to enjoy. The park features a BMX track, a boat launch, disc golf, a dog park, fishing spots, sports fields, walking trails and much more. One feature that is unknown to many is the Alton Baker Native Plant Nursery. 

The Native Plant Nursery is tucked away just southwest of Autzen Stadium next to the Willamette River and the Eugene Community Gardens. The nursery was built in 2006 when seed beds were put together to collect plants for the protection and maintenance of the diversity of native plant communities in parks of the Eugene area. 

“I do a lot of work on the river, Amazon Creek, a bunch of different ponds like Delta Ponds, Empire Pond and a bunch of just any waterway,” Kelsey Irvine, the native plant waterways volunteer coordinator, said. “We also do stewardship work like invasive species removal, plantings, trash cleanup and a variety of needs that our operations teams can’t get to. Mostly what we’re doing is seed production, so we’re saving tens of thousands of dollars by not having to purchase seed for these larger projects by producing our own.”

Many natural areas have received seeds and plant material from the nursery’s yield with 39 pounds of seed harvested in 2020, and 500 plants sown in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021. For the nursery, the process of harvesting seeds and maintaining them takes up a lot of time; it lasts through all four seasons. 3,700 individual plants of 52 species are being grown at the nursery in 40 of their brand-new raised beds with a variety of annuals and perennials.
“They bloom for a few weeks, then they start setting seed, and then that seed ripens which is what we catch. Then they get put into this shed where there’s a bunch of bins and screens so they dry out,” Irvine said. “Some seed heads might be pods, so we need to open those pods to get all the seed out and there’s different cleaning methods for each species. Once it’s pure, that seed gets stored in a refrigerator.” Harvesting of the 52 species begins in the summer and fall, then leads into seed cleaning in the winter and early spring, which finally leads to seeding and ground maintenance in the spring. 

At the Alton Baker Native Plant Nursery, the grounds are fully maintained by volunteers and a few interns. The nursery has weekly volunteer work parties every Friday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at which volunteers can help out with many aspects of the nursery’s operations, depending on what season it is. Currently, volunteers are working hard to clean up debris from the ice storms, and are hoping to move towards increasing the number of species grown at the nursery. 

“It’s really unique because I don’t know of another city that has its own native plant nursery and habitat restoration,” Irvine said. “The community support of our work is also really cool, especially when you get to go out to these sites that your plants or your seeds went to and see them thriving.”

For more information on how to volunteer at the Alton Baker Native Plant Nursery, you can visit their website at https://www.eugene-or.gov/3792/Native-Plant-Nursery, or contact Irvine directly through her email or phone number which is listed on the website.