How to Manage Your Backyard Forest: Best Practices for Small Landowners

In this episode of The Evergreen Thumb, we are joined by Sarah Stewart, a WSU Extension Forestry Program Coordinator and co-leader of the Women Owning Woodlands, Washington chapter. Sarah defines what is considered a backyard forest and gives tips on how to care for them. Learn how to find resources to help you care for your backyard forests, no matter how small they are, so they can thrive in the changing climate. She gives tips and links to resources on how to select seeds stock and plants that will provide and support biodiversity in your forests and keep them resilient and strong for years to come. Sarah also shares information about the Women Owning Woodlands program and gives examples of what might cause a forest owner to contact the program for support.

• Small Forest Landowner Adaptation Guidance | Climate Impacts Group
• Urban and Community Forestry | WA – DNR
• SLLOPPS
• Living with wildlife
• WSU Extension Publication: Backyard Forest Stewardship in Western Washington
• Seedlot Selection Tool
• Zone Matching tool
• Native Plant Nursery list
• WSU Forestry Resources
• Forest Stewardship University
• Forestry Field Days and Events
• Cascades to Coast Landscape Collaborative
• Defensible Space: Practical Steps to Wild Fire Resilience
• Master Gardener Foundation Plant Sales

Erin Hoover: Welcome to The Evergreen Thumb, your go-to podcast for up-to-date research-based horticulture and environmental stewardship knowledge to help you grow and manage your garden. Produced by Washington State University Extension Master Gardener Volunteers and brought to you by the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State.

[00:00:16] I’m your host, Erin Hoover, a WSU Extension Master Gardener since 2015 and a certified permaculture designer and modern homesteader.

WSU Master Gardener volunteers are university-trained community educators who have been cultivating plants, people, and communities since 1973. Are you ready to grow? Let’s dig into today’s episode.

Welcome to The Evergreen Thumb, episode 46.

Guest Introduction

[00:01:00] My guest today is Sarah Stewart. Sarah is a WSU Extension Forestry Program Coordinator for the Greater Puget Sound region. She’s originally from Indiana but has called Renton home for about five years now. She has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Indianapolis where she double majored in Environmental Science and Sustainability and has a double minor in Biology and Geology.

Her technical background is in ecological restoration along riparian ecosystems, which she did for the King Conservation District prior to her current position in forestry. At WSU, she coordinates, facilitates, and educates forestry programs for small forest landers and leads the Woman Owning Woodlands, Washington chapter. She loves to climb, hike, and bird.

Erin Hoover: All right, Sarah, thanks for joining me today. Welcome to the show.

Sarah Stewart: Thank you for having me.

Erin Hoover: So let’s start off by, um, talking a little bit about, uh, the work you do for WSU and your, uh, experience with forestry.

[00:01:50] Sarah Stewart: Absolutely. So I started in September of 2023, and I have served the Puget Sound region for that time, primarily King and Pierce.

My office is located in King with the occasional dabbling in Snohomish Island, San Juan, and Skagit. So really serving all six of those counties, but primarily King and Pierce. Um, and primarily what I do is I coordinate and facilitate our small forest landowner programming, uh, occasionally educating at those programs.

Our flagship course is our forest stewardship course, which is typically a nine-week course that folks take. We offer it in person or online. Um, and they learn how to write their own forest management plan, whether that’s just for them to have, uh, just to be the best forest steward that they can be, or they wanna seek tax breaks with that forest plan or maybe cost share, uh, with DNR or NRCS or Conservation District because they need, uh, assistance implementing a prescription of some kind on their forest.

[00:03:00] So it’s called the Coached Planning for Stewardship course. It’s the same, but, um, that’s our flagship course. We spent a lot of time putting on that programming. We partner greatly with the DNR to provide site visits along with that nine-week, you know, in-person or online, about two, two and a half hours a week kind of classroom lecture.

Um, and we have a field trip from like nine to three on a Saturday with each course as well, so that keeps us super busy. But we do offer one-off programming as well. We are mainly focusing on hosting 11 of those forest stewardship courses across Puget Sound and Southwest Washington this year. But like traditionally, those one-off programs have looked like a trail building workshop, big leaf maple syrup training, you know, a full day training.

[00:04:00] We do an invasive weed management all-day seminar. Um, I hosted a climate symposium in a classroom with a panel of speakers in the fall. So it really ranges depending on what uh, funders are hearing that landowners want in the region, and we do our best to offer that. So.

What is Considered a Small Forest or a Small Landowner?

[00:04:16] Erin Hoover: Okay, so you’re here today to talk to us about backyard forest stewardship, and I’m sure we have more than a few gardeners and listeners who have, you know, small forests near their homes.

What’s considered a small forest or a small landowner?

[00:04:31] Sarah Stewart: UW did a climate resiliency publication where they defined small landowners as owning at least two acres, one of which is forested, up to 2,500 acres. That is one definition of a small forest landowner.

[00:05:00] It varies greatly, uh, by the forester you ask, in my opinion, and you know what their role is and you know what their background is in forestry. So for me, when I’m thinking of a small forest landowner who takes, you know, our forest stewardship course and people who attend our programming. You can have less than one acre, in my opinion, to be a small forest landowner.

You could have 0.3 acres, or you can just have a cluster of trees that you care about and you monitor and maintain. I think it’s just mostly about you, you care, you’re willing to learn and you’re actively paying attention or noticing what’s happening in your forest or your cluster of trees. Uh, that’s kind of my opinion on a small forest landowner.

What is Considered Backyard Forest Stewardship?

[00:05:40] Erin Hoover: What exactly is backyard forest stewardship?

[00:05:45] Sarah Stewart: Yeah. Similar to maybe what I’ve said prior, but I think stewardship generally is, you know, you’re actively managing, and forest management can be kind of an intimidating term, but really when you break it down, that can be as simple as you spend time in your forest and you’re taking note of what is happening in your forest.

It could be active management, could be you take a walk and you notice, oh, the crown of that dug fur looks a little thin. Maybe there’s a root disease present. And then you take notice of that. Maybe you make a plan. A plan is a really good piece of being a good forest steward. But even your plan could be super simple.

You could say, my plan is to do nothing at all. That’s still a plan. So, you’re noticing what’s happening in your forest. You’re making a plan over time, whether you want, what you want to do about what’s happening, and that’s what we do a lot with landowners, and it always just depends on your objective as well.

Everybody is gonna have different objectives, so their plans are gonna look different.

Threats to the Health of Backyard Forests in Washington State

[00:06:51] Erin Hoover: What are some of the biggest threats to the health of backyard forests right now in Washington?

[00:06:55] Sarah Stewart: I would say the biggest threat is definitely gonna be drought/heat stress. Uh, we’re seeing a lot of our native species like doug fir, Western red cedar, Western hemlock, and even big leaf maple um, having a hard time adapting to the longer periods of drought and the hotter summers.

And it’s not only mature trees that are struggling, but it’s been difficult for seedlings to survive, and I think a natural next step when landowners become aware of this drought slash heat stress is, “What can I do about it?”.

It’s a question we get a lot. And for your mature trees, the answer is not a great deal because there’s generally not a lot that you know, you can do to change that. I think a lot of times you just have to trust that your trees are, are resilient, more resilient than people. Typically understand, but it’s a sensitive topic that we have to address a lot because we often have a very emotional connection to our forest or the trees on our land.

[00:08:00] And a lot of times people don’t wanna take that answer of, there’s nothing that you could really do. I would say it’s different for seedlings. I typically don’t super recommend watering, you know, a big stand of mature trees just for water conservation reasons. But if it’s your seedlings, I would answer that a little bit differently.

Giving them a little bit of support, uh, in the first years of the life is really different than watering a huge, you know, a hundred-foot-tall Western red cedar that you can’t really even see where the roots are, are in the landscape. But it’s definitely heat and drought stress for sure.

Best Practices for Maintaining a Resilient Forest Ecosystem

[00:08:41] Erin Hoover: So what are some good practices for maintaining a resilient forest ecosystem?

[00:08:46] Sarah Stewart: I would say diversifying the species composition of your forest, which sounds like duh, but truly if, you know, if you have some hardwoods, you know, a mix of conifers, um, if a disease moves through or a pest or you know, your forest is experiencing some symptoms of climate change like heat stress or drought.

You have a variety of species so that you’re not going to lose all of them at one time because they’re all gonna react differently to a pest or a pathogen or, you know, heat stress and such. So keep your hardwood in your forest and have a good mix of conifers and support wildlife habitat as well because diverse wildlife in your forest protects overall forest health as well.

So yeah, diversifying those species. And, um, while that is a good goal, you wanna make sure you do your research to know, you know, what species are gonna be the best fit for your site. That is part of being a forest steward. And a good forest manager is understanding, you know, what species are gonna give them the best chance of thriving on your property.

[00:10:02] Erin Hoover: For sure.

I can think of when we first bought this property, we tried to plant alders. We are in the bottom of the Chehalis River Valley and it’s a glacial till. It’s really rocky. Really fast draining. And we learn the hard way that there’s just, the soil doesn’t hold enough moisture to support alders.

[00:10:20] Sarah Stewart: Yeah.

[00:10:20] Erin Hoover: Even though they’re all around us, so.

[00:10:23] Sarah Stewart: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:24] Erin Hoover: Because I thought, well, you know, they’re native to this area. They do well in this area, but not on our specific site.

[00:10:31] Sarah Stewart: Yeah. And you taking notice of that and making a note that is for stewardship.

Erin Hoover: Yeah.

Selective Pruning Management Techniques to Improve Forest Health

[00:10:37] Erin Hoover: So how does thinning or selective pruning and uh, similar management techniques help improve forest health?

[00:10:44] Sarah Stewart: So we have such fertile soil in Western Washington. Um, our forests are really good at regenerating, and oftentimes that can mean that there’s some overcrowding also, depending on, you know, what the history of management is on the property that you own. Maybe it was, you know, harvested and let you know, let go naturally, and maybe it’s like relatively young, so it’s at an overcrowded point.

All the trees are stressed, and so because they’re competing so much for the resources and having to adapt to a change in climate at the same time, thinning is great for relieving that stress that could be occurring due to an overcrowded stand or maybe it’s not overcrowded that again, there’s just stress from heat or drought.

Um, so you remove a percentage of that to help maintain the health of, you know, those vigorous trees that you want to continue to do well. So that looks like when trees are having branches of adjoining trees touch, that’s when you know it’s time to thin.

Short tree crowns are also a sign of overcrowding. Healthy trees should have approximately 40% of their total height in live green branches. So those are some key indicators of, you know, “Do I need to thin here?” “Is it overcrowded?”.

How to Support Wildlife and Biodiversity in a Backyard Forest

[00:12:10] Erin Hoover: How can backyard forest owners support wildlife and biodiversity in a forest ecosystem?

[00:12:17] Sarah Stewart: I would say my first answer is dead wood.

Deadwood is super, super important to the overall health of a forest, specifically because it is great for wildlife and as I said, a diverse wildlife population is good for overall forest health.

[00:13:00] So, uh, one of the absolute joys of my position and my role has been to work with Ken Bevis, uh, the DNR Wildlife Biologist, whose mission is to educate landowners as well as, uh, forestry professionals, um, on the importance of deadwood in forest ecosystems. And this is all, everything I’m about to say is all something that he’s made up, but I wanna share it because it’s fantastic.

He came up with his acronym that really gets the message across on how to provide wildlife habitat as well as help with fuel reduction. Um, it’s called SLLOPPS, which is something that you won’t forget when it’s coming out of a DNR wildlife biologist who likes to sing with his guitar. It’s S-L-L-O-P-P-S, and that is Snags, Logs, Legacy openings, Patches, Piles, and Shrubs, which is, is quite a mouthful, but SLLOPPS, you can remember that.

[00:14:00] So snags are probably the most important habitat feature in a forest. You know, no matter what your objective is because if your objective for your forest is diverse wildlife, then absolutely, but overall forest health is, if that’s your number one objective, then snags are good for that too, because insects enter dead wood to feed on fungi, and then you know those birds then go in to get the insects. Woodpeckers, then make cavities in that dead wood. And those cavities provide shelter and nesting locations for other species. And those other species then eat insects, which could be pests. So it’s just this big circle of wildlife supporting the overall health objective of your forest, even if that’s not your first thought as wildlife.

So I would say overall snags, definitely. If a dying tree is very close to your house, then you know, safety should probably be number one. But even then, arborists are trained to make like a wildlife snag. Um, so if that’s something that you care about, even if it’s pretty close to your home, I consult an arborist on if they could make that a snag.

[00:15:00] I would recommend reading Fuels Reduction and Improved Habitat. Try swaps, uh, for more details about, you know, snags and the rest of the acronym. So I’ll provide that link.

[00:15:15] Erin Hoover: Okay, great. Yeah, I know recent, a couple of years ago, I think it was in our demonstration garden, we had a problem tree, and um, we had an arborist come in and turn it into a snag for wildlife in the garden because it’s right next to the native, uh, garden that we have.

So, um, yeah, and that was how I learned that arborists can actually do that.

[00:15:34] Sarah Stewart: So, you know, I have a big Western red cedar over the house that I live in and where my cars are, and my immediate thought was, oh, that tree is probably gonna go. And I learned that it could just be a portion of the stem that’s dead.

And so it might not even be something that you need to consider a hazard, but could be, you know, it is alive and it’s okay and it’s a habitat tree at the same time, which is awesome.

WSU Extension Master Gardener Plant Sale Reminder

[00:16:01] Erin Hoover: I wanted to take a quick break to remind you that spring is just around the corner, and this means that it’s time for the WSU Extension Master Gardener Plant Sales across Washington. These plant sales are the perfect place to find healthy, locally grown plants, including vegetables, perennials, natives, and more, all while supporting research-based gardening education in your community.

Not sure where to find a sale near you? Visit your local WSU Extension Master Gardener website or check out the statewide event calendar at www.mastergardenerfoundation.org/overview/plant-sales. Whether you’re looking for the perfect addition to your garden or just wanna chat with knowledgeable gardeners, don’t miss out.

Support your local master gardeners and grow something great this season.

Balancing Wildfire Preparedness and Wildlife Habitats in Backyard Forests

How can landowners balance, um, wildfire preparedness and the habitat for birds and other species in their forests?

[00:16:54] Sarah Stewart: Yeah, I think, I think it’s important for landowners that reside on the West side to understand that the history of fire and the fire regime that we have on the West side is so, so different than the East side, as well as the fuels reduction management that you may be familiar with on the East side.

It’s generally not going to be what you wanna do on the West side for the most part. And that depends on where you are on the West side because fire intervals vary and depending on the forest type, you know, management is, fire management is gonna look different. But in the Puget Sound lowlands, our fire intervals are long periods of time, a hundred years.

[00:18:00] And typically, it’s very, very severe when it happens. And so the likelihood of fire on the West side is pretty low, and as I said, our forests are so good at regeneration that when it comes to fuel reduction, if you think about reducing fuels in your whole forest the way that you would maybe around your home.

We often call it parking out your forest. And that’s generally not going to work on the West side. Um, just because regeneration happens so quickly, you won’t be able to keep up. Um, so you wanna focus on the five to 30 feet around your home and these are Firewise principles. That’s what, um, you know, conservation districts teach, and they can give you, you know, a site visit just to talk about fire readiness around your home.

[00:19:00] DNR service foresters can do that too, and it’s really, the area that you want to focus on fuel reduction the most, protecting your structures. And you know, in your forest, you know, you can thin have some skips and gaps, you know, have some separation between, you know, the upper canopy and the middle canopy and the lower canopy so the fire can’t get to the crown.

But, typically all the hard work is gonna happen in five to 30 feet around your home for the most part. So that’s where I would say landowners should focus. Get the stuff outta your gutters. All the boring stuff that just nobody wants to do. Get that stuff outta your gutters. You know, make sure the tree, that’s probably a family tree that is cherished, that’s up against your home, you know, prune that up, thin that a little bit.

Uh, and you know, just really if you want to, well, it also depends on your objective and your tolerance for risk. So if you know fire safety is your number one thing that you care about, your number one objective, you’re gonna be more aggressive about removing fuels around your home.

[00:20:00] But maybe the risk of fire is so low and you’re okay with maybe increasing the risk a little bit by keeping that tree a little bit closer to your home than it should be. That’s up to the landowner. But yeah, I would check out Firewise to learn more. Or like I said, you can get a consultation if you wanna know about your specific situation.

[00:20:22] Erin Hoover: and when we did an episode late last year about defensible space too, so I can link to that for people who wanna learn more.

[00:20:30] Sarah Stewart: There we go.

Tree Species or Management Techniques for Adapting to a Changing Climate

[00:20:32] Erin Hoover: Are there tree species or management techniques that we might learn, need to learn, or adapt to as the climate continues to change?

[00:20:43] Sarah Stewart: So that’s a great question. Based on the information I have heard very, very recently, as of yesterday actually, the recommendation is for landowners to, I would say generally we’re still learning.

[00:21:00] Even the geneticists are still learning about what to advise landowners to plan and to do moving forward to best adapt for climate change. The little nugget I took away from a recent presentation from a forest health geneticist was that landowners should stick to native species that currently, you know, occupy the landscape.

And what you wanna change is, rather than the species, the location where you get your seed stock from. And so there are tools to assist landowners with that. There’s one that’s pretty widely used and known about, it’s called the Seed Lot Selection Tool. I just learned about one the other day called the Zone Matcher Tool, which um, I could definitely give you the link for, but I would utilize those tools to kind of decide, you know, where you could possibly get seedlings from.

And it’s also hard because um, nurseries have some, or have so much demand for certain seedling stock that, you know, they’re having a hard time keeping up with, with that demand. So you have to be patient and persevere if you don’t get what you need from, you know, one nursery, keep searching. And we have a list actually at WSU that is on our resources page that gives a list of native plant nurseries that I can give.

That you could maybe do some searching to find, you know, what species you’re looking for and check with them, you know, where they got the seed from. But yeah, I, the Seed Lot Selection Tool is nice. And the zone matcher tool, which I’ll find a link, um, for you, is a great tool for landowners to try to anticipate what the landscape and the climate is gonna be in the future.

[00:23:00] But the reality is that the trees have to survive now. And so, there’s a lot of talk about, um, bringing non-native species in that maybe would do well in our climate in the future, but they have to survive now. So I would say some of those species that we get questions about a lot or sequoia or redwood or incense cedar.

My answer is like, definitely plant that if you, you know, as an experiment and if you enjoy that species. But when it comes to, um, like a large planting, I would, I would say sticking to native species with diversified seed stock locations is the way to go.

Women Owning Woodlands

[00:23:44] Erin Hoover: All right, so switch gears a little bit.

I’m hoping you can tell us a little bit about Women Owning Woodlands, Washington program, and um, what their mission is.

[00:23:54] Sarah Stewart: Yes. What a joy Women Owning Woodlands is. Yeah. I recently stepped in to lead that initiative with my coworker Elsa Ha, out of the Southwest Washington region. And we have an actually quite a large gang of women who are, you know, leading the charge, uh, for the Washington chapter from different agencies or just, you know, engage small forest landowners.

Basically, what it is, its mission is just to provide a safe space for female forest managers and forestry professionals to go for community comradery. Um, it’s a safe place to ask questions and it’s really just about it’s about education, but it’s also about community. I would say equally.

What Sort of Things Cause Landowners to Need Support from WOW?

[00:24:49] Erin Hoover: So, what kind of challenges do these landowners face and how are they, how do they get support from the program?

[00:24:57] Sarah Stewart: So, it’s a national network and nationally it was created because traditionally the matriarch of the family was left out of the forest management conversation.

It usually was a male’s job to manage the forest and the women in the house or the family weren’t really brought into the conversation, but women typically live longer, and so a lot of times they find themselves as the sole owner of their forest. And it becomes a question of, “Do we sell it to, you know, make a profit or this is something we’ve stewarded and own for a long time?”.

“How can I step in and be the forest manager?” But they don’t have any background knowledge because they weren’t ever brought into the conversation. But they also don’t wanna give it up and they, they want to kind of rise to the occasion. And so that’s kind of the history of WOW. And I think that’s still true today.

[00:26:00] Um, there’s people that come to our events that, you know, their grandpa died and they’re the ones that had the interest, to take over the working forest. So they’re just looking for a place to start. And a lot of times, you know, they see women owning woodlands and they know that they’re gonna be surrounded by women who are there to support them and encourage them, and maybe they feel more comfortable in that space compared to, you know, normal programming where it may be more of a male audience that they don’t feel as, uh, comfortable asking questions in front of that they might feel silly for asking a certain question, which is never true, but you know, they might feel better in a women majority group.

WSU Forestry Resources for Backyard Forest Owners

[00:26:50] Erin Hoover: What other types of resources do WSU Forestry offer to, uh, small forest landowners?

[00:26:58] Sarah Stewart: Yeah. My program, it’s mainly, uh, programming. We do have quite an extensive resource catalog on our website that landowners can go to, to, you know, learn on their own or, uh, do research on their own. We do have an on-demand module resource called Forest Stewardship University, and some of the topics are similar to what you’d experience in, you know, one of our topical workshops or one-day programs or our forest stewardship course, if people wanted to do that on their own time rather than sign up for programming.

But just a lot of programming. Something that we have coming up soon is we, we do, uh, field days, usually one in the winter inside and one outside in the field in the summertime when it’s nicer. So we do that every year and usually, the winter school is indoors in March and usually, um, June, July, August for the summer field day.

[00:28:00] And so that’s a great day to learn a lot, a lot of different topics in one day you can, I think, take up to seven one-hour workshops or maybe at six, um, and learn about all kinds of things. Um, so that’s a great place to learn about WSU Forestry in one go.

[00:28:19] Erin Hoover: I’ve heard of the field days. Is there like one in each region each year or is it like east, west, or…?

[00:28:29] Sarah Stewart: Yeah, so we have one yearly on the east and west side.

Both winter school and summer field day on the east side and the west side, we’re thinking about doing, sometimes there are multiple field days, um, in the summer throughout the region. So we’re thinking about doing one in the San Juans this year, and we do one in King pretty much every year. So, um, it can vary location, but ya for like east and west, it’s usually one in winter and one in the summer.

Final Thoughts on Backyard Forest Stewardship

[00:29:00] Erin Hoover: Yeah. So, um, any final thoughts that you’d like to add about backyard forest stewardship?

[00:29:07] Sarah Stewart: Yeah, I would say that there’s so many resources for small forest landowners in Washington and it’s really just cool to see how many people there are working to like help you.

So one of the tools that I recommend to landowners to learn more about who’s out there to help them reach their objectives is called the Cascades to Coast Landscape Collaborative Hosts, this tool is called the Landscape Conservation Mapper. That website in general, and that organization in general is fantastic, but The Mapper will tell a landowner, um, what agencies or organizations in their area are, are present, and it’ll list what each one has to offer for small forest landowners.

[00:30:00] Um, so that’s a really great tool to figure out like who is in your area, whether that’s Conservation district, you know, D-N-R-W-S-U, um, that can help you reach your management objectives. So that’s a great tool and of course, if you do have any questions, um, you can always email us.

[00:30:21] Erin Hoover: Great. Well, we’ll have all those links in the show notes so listeners can get ahold of those.

Thanks so much for joining me today, Sarah.

Sarah Stewart: Yay. Thank you so much for having me, Erin.

Erin Hoover: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Evergreen Thumb, brought to you by the WSU Extension Master Gardner Program volunteers, and sponsored by the Master Gardner Foundation of Washington State.

We hope that today’s discussion has inspired and equipped you with valuable insights to nurture your garden.

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