NATIVE PLANT BUSINESS WELL ESTABLISHED

NATIVE PLANT BUSINESS WELL ESTABLISHED

By LUCY BODILLY
Special to the Journal

When Dan and Ann McCain first started growing native plants 13 years ago, fellow nurserymen laughed, and accused them of growing weeds. Now, it seems, several other nurseries are working hard to fit the word "wetlands", or "native" into their company name.

Supplying plant material for wetland mitigation, stream bed restoration and native area enhancement is a business that is, well . . . growing quickly.

As developers are forced to build on marginal land, more and more projects call for restoration efforts. Surface water management officials are focusing on the importance of maintaining existing wetlands. And, now homeowners are seeing the advantage of planting low maintenance native plants in their yards.

"Now every project has at least a little bit of mitigation work," said Jay Curcio of Pacific Earth Works, a large landscape contractor.

The mitigation work for the SuperMall in Auburn was one of the biggest projects his company has ever done, Curcio said. "Of the 200 acres that was developed, about 10 percent called for wetland mitigation."

Just up the road is Emerald Downs, another project that required a huge amount of wetland work. Developers are rumored to have spent over $1.5 million was spent on wetland plants alone.

All this means that for growers and brokers of native plants, business is booming.

"Our business has grown at least 30 percent every year since we started five years ago," said Kathy Jeppson, owner of Wetlands and Woodlands in Bothell. One of her biggest jobs was supplying $80,000 worth of plants for a stream corridor restoration in Redmond.

Up until a few years ago, even finding plants was a challenge, Curcio said. "When I had to do wetland work I would buy bulrushes, and things like that from back east. Now, there are many nurseries here just focused on native plants."

Officials at Storm Lake Growers, located in Monroe, one of the first native plant nurseries in the area, says business is steady over last year. But, its propagation methods improved greatly with the investment in a biotherm system which warms the seed flats with water filled cables instead of using electric cable. Because it has more stock, it will expand to property across street from the present site.

Even with the increase in available nurseries, finding an ethical supplier can still be a challenge, nursery owners say.

"There are a lot of shenanigans," said Dan McCain of Storm Lake Growers.

Some landscape contractors try to skirt the project requirements by substituting a similar, non-native plant for the plant required because the native plant is in short supply, McCain said.

Until a few years ago, it was common for collectors to go into forest service lands without permits and dig plants indiscriminately. 'Originally, some of the collected plants like salal or vine maple were ripped out of the woods by the hundreds," McCain said. Understandable, when an eight-foot vine maple will sell for at least $35.

Now, areas where permits are issued are becoming more difficult to access. For the most part, commercial permits are issued only for areas that are going to be reconstructed or revegetated, said Laura Potash, a botanist with the Mount Baker Snoqualimie National Forest. The high cost of permits, which went up at the beginning of 1997, makes it almost as expensive to dig a mature plant from the wild as it does to propagate it.

"If there is a high demand for a certain plant, we have the authority to adjust the price upwards," said Mick Wilson, of the forest service. For very popular plants, permits are even auctioned off, though that has not happened locally, Wilson said.

Enforcement of permit requirements is almost impossible, Wilson said. "We don't have the money or personnel." Private forest owners, such as Weyerhaeuser often have no salvage programs. Because of the high prices for permits and difficult access, the number of permits issued is dropping steadily. "The most commonly requested permits are for Western Hemlock, Douglas Fir and bear grass." Wilson said.

For owners, the advantage of buying from the nursery is that the plants are less prone to disease and pests.

Storm Lake Growers, for example, buys seeds from collectors and then grows its own stock. The company also has nurseries that grow plants for them under a contract. It uses one collector, who only gathers plants located in areas that are about to be logged or developed.

Storm Lake weeds out crooked collectors by a strict policy of only buying from those who show their permits and business licenses. And then it will only issue checks to a company, not an individual.

"We get several phone calls per week, and when they hear the requirements, 99 percent of them hang up the phone," McCain said.

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