Fall GreenScene

Discover GreenScene – your guide to great places and green living.

The quarterly Metro GreenScene features sustainable living tools, nature notes, stories about outstanding people and places, and news from the front lines of the regionwide effort to protect natural areas and water quality. Plus you'll find hundreds of nature activities, paddle trips, bike rides, bird walks, volunteer opportunities and natural gardening workshops offered all around the region.

In this issue

Rare Sidalcea flourishes at Gotter Prairie

To visit Gotter Prairie is to travel back in time to a landscape that once flourished throughout the Northern Willamette Valley. To discover a wildflower thought to have disappeared entirely from the area thriving in this unique prairie habitat is to witness nature reclaiming the former farmland and returning it to its native state... More

1,000 acres and counting

Since 2006, Metro’s voter-approved Natural Areas Program has funded land acquisitions and capital improvements that protect water quality, preserve fish and wildlife habitat, enhance trails and wildlife corridors and provide greater connections to nature throughout the Portland metropolitan area. With the addition in June of three new properties, the total acreage of protected natural areas has reached the 1,000 acre mark, moving the program closer to the goal of protecting up to 4,000 acres in urban areas and areas where development is likely to occur. With nearly nine miles of stream and river frontage included in the new total, habitat quality for fish and wildlife can be preserved and improved. More

Discover the naturalist in you

Every year thousands of children and adults visit Metro’s parks and natural areas on school field trips and for summer programs. Volunteer naturalists make these wonderful experiences possible by helping Metro staff naturalists lead these activities and programs. Find out how you can attend Nature University... More

Also meet volunteer naturalist Tom Oxley and read his story about leading a group of kindergarten kids through the ancient forest at Oxbow Regional Park... More

What the rain promises

Ready to dive into the world of fungi? According to Metro naturalist James Davis, learning to identify mushrooms is hard but not hopeless. It requires some knowledge, work, patience and good luck. Like so many things, it’s easier than you think once you take the plunge. But slow down, look carefully, take your time and enjoy the wonderful places where you find mushrooms...More

Fall calendar

GreenScene provides a comprehensive calendar of nature activities, gardening workshops and volunteer ventures offered by Metro and more than 100 other organizations...More