Reclaiming the landscape: Greenhouse project to spur habitat restoration

By this fall well have over 100,000 plants, says project manager Patrick Breedlove, looking out over the yard of potted natives.

Those pots represent just the starting stock for what Breedlove eventually hopes to see covering the yard and growing along Cherokee stream banks. The department is continuing to get more species in largely from the N.C. Forest Service, which has given the Eastern Band a reduced price with plans to gather still more from the backcountry.

Come fall, theyll take cuttings of all the plants and start growing those cuttings into new plants. Those baby plants will go in the greenhouse for the winter while their roots grow and their stems harden into wood, and from there theyll move to a soon-to-be-erected cold-weather hoop house. The last stop will be a return to the grow yard when the weather gets warm, where theyll await planting in some tribal restoration project. Meanwhile, another batch will be growing up six months behind.

Our goal in three to five years is for us to provide all plants, not just for environmental-based projects but to land-based projects that need native plants, Breedlove said.

The tribe doesnt reveal cost figures for projects, but the propagation operation, with its automated greenhouse and irrigation system, soon-to-be-installed tower lights and security system and the impending renovation of a historic house onsite that will serve as an office didnt come cheaply. But within three years, Breedlove said, the greenhouse operation will have paid for itself.

The plants will mainly be used in restoration projects to improve waterside habitats and wildlife forage. Before, the Eastern Band has had to buy all those plants from some other supplier, but its a whole lot cheaper to grow them in-house. For instance, a rhododendron in one gallon of soil costs $3.30 to buy, but only about $0.60 to propagate.

For some of them, were about 10 or 15 percent of cost, Breedlove said.

Its the potential for cost savings that initially sparked Breedloves interest in the greenhouse idea. He started looking into the dollars and cents in 2012, submitting a financial analysis to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which funds ECBI restoration projects. The funds were approved in October, with 99 percent of the money coming from the EPA, though a whole laundry list of partners donated supplies, volunteers, professional advice and the remainder of the cash. By January, the first ground was broken, and by July the greenhouse was ready to go.

I detailed my whole department down here for the last two weeks, said Jamie Long, manager of the Office of Environment and Natural Resources. We worked every day, long hours.

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Reclaiming the landscape: Greenhouse project to spur habitat restoration