Partners

East Cascades Native Plant Hub

The East Cascades Native Plant Hub is a unique educational partnership between Oregon State University – Cascades Campus, the National Park Service, and WinterCreek Nursery.  The Hub’s mission is to educate the next generation of conservation practitioners through providing opportunities to complete every stage of ecological restoration, from seed collection and cleaning, to propagating site specific genotypes and completing on-the-ground restoration of native plant communities in a variety of ecoregions across the western U.S.  Four specific objectives were identified during development of the partnership: Climate change adaptation, pre-fire fuels management, post-fire recovery, and rare species conservation and recovery.

The Hub is centered at OSU’s HERS Lab (Human and Ecosystem Resiliency and Sustainability) and serves as the center for the storage and dissemination of information, plant material, and labor.  This unique partnership provides a model for a centralized regional approach to conservation of native plant communities throughout the west.  The partnership was developed in mid-2022. Early efforts focus on National Park Service properties located in sagebrush-steppe ecosystems, with plans to expand support to additional interested partners including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. 

City of Bend WaterWise Program

The City of Bend has been developing its WaterWise program for several decades and has recently implemented a system of economic incentives to encourage water savings through using native and dryland adapted plants in landscape design. We have been a partner with the Bend Public Works Department since about 2003 in creating an emphasis on native plants in landscapes for resource conservation and protection of habitat within our urban areas. In partnership with Public Works, we have designed and constructed numerous projects over the past 20 years that demonstrate the economic and social benefits of ecology-based native landscapes. Most recently we are working with the City, local Landscape Architects, and OSU Extension on revising development code and standards that will result in significant water savings in new developments throughout the city.

One of the primary issues in the native plant industry is availability. The supply of native species often cannot keep up with the demand. The High Desert Horticultural Center, with the support of the Bend Public Works Department, will be expanding the capacity to provide local native plants by establishing a large propagation facility to meet current and future demand.