Friends Look For More Volunteer Support

Originally published in the Port Townsend Leader, November 19, 2025

BY JOHN HALL

My friends and I weed a 400-acre garden.

We could use a little help.

If you’re ever enjoying Fort Worden and spot a group of people out in the weeds, pulling weeds, that’s the Friends of Fort Worden Trail Team. I’m one of them.

Next time you see us, stop and say hello. We’re quite friendly—unless you’re an invasive plant. The trail team’s prime directive is to eject invasive weeds like Scotch Broom, poison hemlock and spurge laurel from the park.

Not to brag, but we’re pretty good at it. Five years ago, Fort Worden had more invasive plants than any state park in Washington. Today, if you can find a patch of scotch broom, we’ll give you a Weed Wrench, loan it to you, actually, so you can pull weeds.

If you do stop to say hi, you’ll find something astonishing — a group of people having fun pulling weeds. There’s something about sweating alongside friendly, dedicated people that actually makes for a great morning.

Our work parties usually last just a couple of hours on a Saturday morning, and that’s almost enough to keep the weeds at bay, but we could definitely use more hands.

For instance, when three work parties in a row barely made a dent in a mass of blackberry and ivy on the old cistern near Upper Gunline Road, we called in Steve Martin (not that Steve Martin) and his Kubota excavator. Martin dragged out five tons of the invasive plants in one weekend.

If you’re not keen on pulling weeds, we could still use your help with other tasks. At various times, the trail team has installed concrete benches, repaired picnic tables, painted signs, and planted native trees and plants. Nature abhors a vacuum, so once we pull the weeds, we replace them with native plants as soon as possible.

This past year, thanks to generous donations, we’ve planted vine maple, Douglas fir, Western red cedar, salmonberry, snowberry, salal, and many other natives. Some were planted by the trail team, and some with the help of local contractors like Sound Native Plants and Agate Landscaping.

 As a volunteer, you’ll also have a sort of backstage pass to the park. We wander way off trail hunting bad weeds, sometimes finding historic artifacts (logged with park staff, of course), and other times just stumbling upon a beautiful area of the park we never knew existed.