Projects In Development

Plant Amnesty Event at GSC

Plant Amnesty event at the Good Shepherd Center/ Photo: Marissa Natkin

Plant Amnesty Event at the Good Shepherd Center/ Photo: Marissa Natkin.

Plant Amnesty is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 to promote healthy pruning practices and to protect trees and shrubs from damaging practices, or as they refer to them, “crimes against nature”. Their solutions to plant abuse include garden renovation workshops, videos, classes, a referral service, as well as volunteer pruning and tree projects throughout the community.

The Good Shepherd Center was approached in early May by Kurt Fickeisen, of Symbiosis Tree Care, the current co-head of the Plant Amnesty Tree Programs committee, with the idea to explore the possibility of having the Good Shepherd be a site for a 2008 volunteer work party. He was joined by Alan Lamp, of Fluent Tree Professionals, co-chair of the committee, for the initial walk through, and it was determined that we had many good candidate large trees that needed attention, and after checking in with the volunteer team, a plan was made to have an event here in early summer.

Plant Amnesty Event at the Good Shepherd Center/ Photo: Marissa Natkin.

Cass Turnbull, Plant Amnesty’s president and original founder, then took the ball and began organizing the event that would bring in not only volunteer arborists but other volunteers to help with event logistics and traffic control and re-routing, and would include a tie in to arbor day with a small ceremony to thank the arborists on behalf of our trees and our GSC community.

Cass and her team impressively put together all the details in a few short weeks, and we had our wildly successful event on Thursday, June 19 th. Initially Kurt and Alan strategized which trees and which areas would receive attention first based on their expectation that anywhere from 8 to 10 arborists would show up to help. When the big day arrived, something about the combination of good weather and infectious good natured neighborly generosity resulted in a team of over 20 arborists crawling through the upper canopy of our humble forest landscape.

Plant Amnesty Event at the Good Shepherd Center/ Photo: Marissa Natkin.

All the volunteers were enthusiastic, professional, and worked together with a refreshing camaraderie that was infectious to observers and visitors, and made the whole day not only a success but a true pleasure. All the potential difficulties and potential sour moods resulting from traffic jams and changes to people’s normal patterns were allayed early by the volunteers’ good cheer and helpfulness.

Arbor day actually falls in April, but Cass took the opportunity to do a tie in by having our thank you ceremony also be a belated arbor day celebration. A press release was issued, some press did make an appearance, interviews were given, pizza was eaten, some members of the general public attended as well as at least thirty or so program staff members and building users, including a group of kids from the Neo Art School’s summer program who were working on a “tree art” project that day in honor of the occasion.

Plant Amnesty Event at the Good Shepherd Center/ Photo: Marissa Natkin.

After the ceremony the crew went back to work, climbing and swinging like monkeys to finish up in the trees, and then cleaning, chipping, raking and hauling all the wood and brush and leaving the place clean and safe for normal operations in (almost) the blink of an eye.

We at Historic Seattle and we as a staff at the Good Shepherd Center, want to very gratefully acknowledge Cass Turnbull at Plant Amnesty, Kurt Fickeisen at Symbiosis Tree Care, Alan Lamp with Fluent Tree Professionals as well as all the participants listed below for their consideration, generosity and professionalism.

Plant Amnesty Staff and volunteers:

Cass Turnbull

Laura Watson

Joyce Lane

Sherry Perrine

Emily and Ross Schwartz

Plant Amnesty Board Members:

Mark Ewanciw

Marianna Clark

Julia Derby

Master Pruner Students:

Jill Johnson