Going Native : Volunteers Plant Trees, Shrubs to Restore Habitat in Orange Park

Budding yellow and blue wildflowers dot the meadows where a dusty service road once ran. Fuchsia-colored gooseberry bushes, California holly shrubs and baby sycamore trees flourish on previously empty terrain.

And the grass towers more than a foot tall, wild and unkempt but just the way the Sea & Sage chapter of the National Audubon Society wants it.

Planting several shrubs at a time, the natural preservation group is trying to restore a native look and habitat to Irvine Regional Park in Orange. For the past six years, more than 100 volunteers have planted shrubs, flowers and trees as part of the Native Plant Revegetation Project, a joint venture between the group and the county.

“We’re seeking to do more than landscape with native plants,” said Susan Sheakley, the project coordinator. “We’re doing ecological landscaping, and we are attempting to create a native habitat.”

Constant use in recent decades caused damage to certain areas of the park, according to Tim Miller, Orange County Regional Parks operations manager. Young plants such as oak trees would not grow because they were constantly being trampled by visitors, he said.

“Areas had become devoid of a shrub layer,” Sheakley said. “Birds that needed a little bit of cover didn’t go into that area to use it.”

Sea & Sage, a group of 3,000 members, struck up a deal with the county’s Department of Harbor, Beaches and Parks in the fall of 1987. The county provided funding, and Sea & Sage volunteers offered their gardening services.

Project leaders at the time targeted 21 sites in the park, ranging in size from one-tenth of an acre to three acres, for restoration. Two sites have been restored so far, and an additional five are in progress, Miller said.

“They’ve done a great job,” Miller said. The project “enhances the beauty of the park and adds wildlife to the park.”

The success of this project has inspired Miller to organize planting sessions at Yorba and William R. Mason regional parks. The county, with the help of seven local environmental groups, planted a combined $75,000 worth of trees and shrubs at the two parks last fall.

While the Irvine Regional Park project will not be completed for 10 years, park rangers and volunteers said changes to the landscape are already evident.

“It’s very noticeable,” said John Bradley, an Irvine biologist and volunteer. “The vegetation has increased in height, the foliage has blossomed . . . the plants are more robust. We’ve definitely seen more wildlife. It’s as gorgeous as it’s ever been.”

Elderberry shrubs, with their clusters of white flowers, and lemonade berry bushes now grow in dense packs at the center of the park. And birds and other wildlife that once kept to park outskirts are beginning to nest there, volunteers said.

“In a place where there was no shrub layer, we know that we created a place for birds to nest,” Sheakley said. “We can see the difference . . . between the barren areas and now.”

Such changes have kept volunteers like Bradley coming back to the park a couple of times a month for the past three years. Bradley said he will continue with the gardening project “for as long as I live in Orange County.”

At each site, a team of volunteers fertilizes, weeds and waters shrubs and wildflowers or trees. The sites are fenced off for an average of two years, or until the plants are large and tall enough that they wouldn’t be destroyed by the public, Miller said.

Project leaders said the efforts will also save money and water. Native Californian plants require little maintenance and water after the first few years, Sheakley said. They also provide nectar and other nutrients to birds and animals, which ornamental plants cannot, she said.

The group plants trees and shrubs that grow within a mile of the park to be in keeping with the natural surroundings.

“We’re trying to mimic the randomness of nature,” Sheakley said. “We use plants that are local. We’re trying to plant them in ways that would occur in nature.”