Seneca Meadows

Native plant specialists from Taylor Creek Restoration Nurseries hand-collected thousands of pounds of native seed for the restoration of more than 1,100 acres of wetland mitigation at the Seneca Meadows Landfill, the largest landfill in the state.

Prior to the permitted landfill expansion, Taylor Creek crews began hand-collecting native seed from wetland, prairie, savanna, and woodland species at the landfill site and surrounding area.

Because most collection sites were within the mitigation area to be impacted, nursery specialists were able to harvest entire populations of seed that would soon be lost to development. Typically, Taylor Creek’s ethics policy is to hand-collect no more than 1/3 of the seed from an individual species on a site.

The collection effort, while not a plant rescue, was essentially a “genetics rescue” for species and plants that would be reintroduced into the 1,100-acre restoration that is now the Seneca Meadows Preserve.

The first seed collections were shipped to the Taylor Creek operation in Wisconsin where seed was grown into more than 200,000 plant plugs used by RES field services crews in the large-scale restoration. Additionally, field crews installed several tons of native seed in this RES design/build project, either collected, grown, or procured by Taylor Creek staff.

Today, local volunteers and student groups collect seed from our well-established plants in the Preserve to use in their own landscape and restoration projects.

• Native Seed + Plants
• Full-Service Procurement
• Hand Collection of Native Seed
• Propagation + Plug Development
• Project Management