The Friends of LBA Woods is a volunteer stewardship group devoted to the restoration of wildlife habitat in the LBA Woods and to advocating for the protection and enhancement of the park for our community.
LBA Woods is the 133-acre wooded portion of the LBA Park & Woods, a city park in southeast Olympia, Washington. The main park entrances are at 3333 Morse-Merryman Rd. and 3500 Amhurst St. To locate additional pedestrian-bicycle entrances, consult the Park Map.
Winter Twig I.D. Walk --February 7 9:30 a.m.-12 noon
(WinterTwigs in a Time of COVID)
Join Theo Thomas, Forester, for this guided walk to learn the secrets of identifying many of our native shrubs and trees by their bare twigs alone. Discover the intricate markings, scars, buds, and other subtle features that are unique to each species. This is one of our most popular walks so sign up early. Registration is limited to 15 people. To register and get details, email Olympia Parks Stewardship at jgessley@ci.olympia.wa.us We will meet at the picnic shelter in LBA Park at the Amhurst Street dead end and walk into the woods from there. Dress for the weather!
CANCELLED! February 14th Work Party 9-11 a.m.
Join the Friends of LBA Woods to help tackle patches of invasive English Ivy. Our stewarship group has been working diligently to rid the woods of this very vigorous evergreen but we need more hands to get the job done. We will have tools and gloves and service-hour forms for student volunteers. Please RSVP to lbawoodsoly@gmail.com for meeting place.
Backyard Biomes for You!
Backyard Biomes is new Olympia-based company focussed on designing your backyard to support native ecosystems. They are the anti-dote to "chem-lawn." They offer landscaping services (removing invasives, for instance) as well as installing raised or ground level garden beds, native food plant gardens, bird-friendly gardens, common understory habitat gardens, prairie gardens, wetland gardens, and so much more! (FYI: A neighbor arranged with Backyard Biomes to replant some overcrowded Bracken Ferns from her yard to the Van Epps Street trailhead to the LBA Woods. Thank you for keeping these native ferns in our landscape! Learn more about Backyard Biomes' services at https://backyardbiomes.earth/
Still Curious about Mosses, Lichens & Liverworts?
A great big thanks to Marian Bailey, our knowledgable guide for our recent Moss, Lichen, and Liverwort Walk in the LBA Woods. (And to Terri Blazell for all photos above).
We had a full house and some excellent young naturalists on the walk. To describe this walk as fascinating hardly captures the amazing varieties of green and glorious living things Marian introduced to our group. We were all equipped with 5x magnifying loupes and detailed handouts on the featured cryptogams (the scientific term for this group of "plants" with hidden (crypto) gams (their reproductive organs). But Mother Nature is not stingy with cryptograms in the LBA Woods. Every tree and branch we examined hosted several different cryptogams, creating a stunning tapestry of textures, shapes, and greenish hues. We could hardly tear our enthusiastic selves away from one tree to move onto the next. If you'd like a list of resources and handouts from the walk, please email lbawoodsoly@gmail.com
