Happy New Year!

Conservation Seeding and Restoration Inc is enjoying the week of New Years as a holiday vacation. The entire staff at CSR, Inc wishes you and your family a joyous holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

CSR Christmas Toy Drive

CSR’s Valley House toy drive was a huge success! We had 12 employees/employee families participate to provide gifts for 20 kids in need, with a total haul of a whopping 30 gifts for both the kids and the house in general! Way to go Team CSR!

Happy Holidays from Conservation, Seeding and Restoration Inc!

WY Russian Olive Brushing Project

Our Idaho construction crew has been spending quite a bit of time in Wyoming the past month working on a Russian Olive removal project. Russian Olives have taken over this particular area and the guys are reclaiming it. The first step to restoring this site back to native vegetation includes cutting down the Russian Olives and applying chemical to the stumps to prevent regrowth. Regrowth is likely, but this approach greatly reduces the re-treatment chemical application. This time of year is an optimal time for cut-stump activities. As trees move into dormancy, sap-flow carries the chemical deep into the roots, effectively controlling the invasive species. This can prove to be a tough job, especially when the weather dips into the negative digits. You have to hand to them though, they have cut through most of the project site before returning home for the holidays. Great work guys!

Invasive Focus: Myrtle Spurge, Euphorbia myrsinites L.

Perhaps you have seen this plant around your neighborhood. Pretty, yet extremely invasive. Myrtle spurge can crowd out native habitat for wildlife. It poses danger to adults and children because of it’s caustic latex sap. This sap causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea when ingested. If the sap comes in contact with the skin, it causes redness, swelling and blisters.

Myrtle spurge was introduced as an ornamental plant because of it’s deer resistance and adaptation to dry soil. Commonly used in landscapes as a border plant, it takes over and spreads like crazy! Oddly enough, it is still popular in area nurseries, yet listed as noxious and even illegal to cultivate in some surrounding states.

The Lorax, CSR Library

The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, is a book title held close to the heart of CSR, Inc. As such, it seems only fitting to start our new blog page with such.  Read on as one of  CSR, Inc’s  owners  express the importance of finding “True Value”…..

It’s important to note that this story, as simple and straight forward as it is, provides for us at CSR, Inc a couple of very powerful truths.  First, we are the “Oncler” as a society.  Second, we are the “Lorax” as a community inside of that society.  Simply we, the “humanity, Oncler’s”,  are the only beings that set forth a value for creatures, landscapes, habitats and all other items in or on the planet earth. Because we take the liberty to set the values it’s up to us, the “Lorax” of society,  to establish value for the things the “Onclers”  have overlooked from their perches and towers, or missed in their vigor to establish value for things that are easier to see, feel and experience.  Please read this children’s book and experience your surroundings in a way that lets YOU place a different “value” on items that seem distant or difficult to understand.  Accept the world the way a child does and learn from the humility that comes from acknowledging you are not the one that sets forth the values you have been taught to cherish, but are merely reacting to the teachings of society.  Don’t be a “Oncler”.

“On the Bookshelf” is a growing collection, with new titles added every week, of the informative books shelved within the offices of CSR, Inc. We look forward to exploring and sharing these books with our readers and encourage you to share with us any of your favorite titles as well. Enjoy!

Invasive Focus: Scotch Thistle, Onopordum acanthium L

Scotch Thistle, Onopordum acanthium L. is a native to Europe and Asia. It is extremely invasive. Seeds disperse locally via wind, with humans and livestock aiding in long distance dispersal. It prefers disturbed areas, grasslands, shrublands and riparian zones; tending to be abundant in dry pastures. This thistle quickly invades sunny, disturbed sites but is suppressed when encroaching into a healthy system. Once established though, it becomes highly competitive and quickly develops into a monoculture. Its rapid growth and large size reduce the amount of available light to the understudy. Which, of course, is bad news for all involved. This particular species is a prolific seed producer, with 8,400 to 40,000 seeds produced annually. 80-90% of these seeds can remain dormant for up to five years, making control of its seedbank imperative.

Invasive? Yes.

In The CSR Nursery, Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuge

Photos taken on December 3rd, 2009 showing leafing out on Peachleaf Willow, Salix amygdaloides and Black Cottonwood, Populus balsamifera L. ssp. trichocarp. Both species are part of our tree grow out project for the Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuge. Exciting times for the nursery as they are waking up trees in the middle of winter.

Southern Idaho’s Wild Orchid, Epipactis gigantea

Epipactis gigantea, photographed in August of ’06 just off the paved trail at Shoshone Falls, is one of several native orchids in Southern ID. This plant grows in wet areas in a variety of habitats, including riverbanks, hot springs, and meadows. If you look around the Shoshone Falls trail you will find quite a bit of it due to the water availability from the slopes. Unlike some of its relatives, this species is an autotroph (an organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple inorganic molecules using energy from light (by photosynthesis) or inorganic chemical reactions). This wildflower is native to western North America from western Canada to central Mexico and is one of the most abundant orchids of the Pacific coast of North America.

Vote John French, Budweiser Conservationist of the Year!

Today is your last chance to vote for John French as the Budweiser Conservationist of the Year! If you have not yet voted, please join us in doing so by clicking here, it only takes a moment.

Photos of bee hives located on John French’s Point of Rocks Ranch. Notice the patches of Blue Flax, Linum lewisii in the surrounding field…

In the Nursery: Tall Willowherb, Epilobium brachycarpum

New in the CSR, Inc nursery: Tall Willowherb, Epilobium brachycarpum

Plant is quite variable in size (1 to 6 feet) depending on site conditions. Willowherb grows well in dry soils, woodlands, grassy areas and is considered a good roadside species. Flowers are four petaled (notched) and pinkish purple to light pink in color. The species will attract butterflies, specifically the *Woodland Skipper

*Mature species photo credit