UPDATE: Cotton Hill Work Party Rescheduled for Saturday

UPDATE, Jan. 24: The Martin Luther King Day work party at Cotton Hill Park that had been scheduled for Jan. 16 but was canceled due to snow has been rescheduled for this Saturday, Jan. 28, from 9 a.m. to noon.

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UPDATE, Jan. 16, 9 a.m.: Cotton Hill Park steward Karen Story reports that the work party scheduled for Monday, Jan. 16 will be canceled due to the snowy, icy condtions. Volunteers would not be able to see the vegetation to be removed, and there are also concerns about driving on slippery roads.

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Original story:

The University of Washington’s Restoration Ecology Network has again chosen Kirkland for a project, with six students spending this academic year helping restore native vegetation at .

A limited number of projects are selected from many submitted by local groups for the program, a 10-credit course that Kirkland has been involved with for four straight years.

Five students from the main UW campus in Seattle and one from UW Bothell will work with the Green Kirkland Partnership and the Highlands neighborhood at Cotton Hill, which like most urban parks is infested with invasive vegetation such as English ivy and Himalayan blackberry. Such non-native species smother native vegetation and limit the use of the forests by native wildlife.

Previous UW students and local volunteers have already restored half of the 2-acre park, which is along the and linked by the abandoned railway with nearby 26.6-acre .

The students will first develop a proposal for the restoration work, and then spend much of the winter and spring clearing the invasive vegetation and the replanting and mulching the restoration area. They hope to involve biology classes at nearby during the spring. At the end of the project, a final report will be written.

Volunteers will be needed to help the UW students. The first work party, to clear the site, will be held on Martin Luther King Day of Service, Jan. 16, 2012. For more information, contact Cotton Hill Park Steward Karen Story, at karen@tinyisland.com.