Local businesses rooted in stewardship are reshaping the upper Wenatchee Valley landscape

LEAVENWORTH – As environmental awareness grows across North Central Washington, a new wave of land stewardship is taking root in the upper valley. Local businesses such as Derby Canyon Natives, Alpenglö Living, and Shelter and Seeds are helping landowners transform their landscapes to be more sustainable, through native species, ecological design, and regenerative practices.

“There's a tremendous amount of growth in the industry right now…There's a lot of young people that are pretty environmentally conscious…and there's just an increasing awareness in our area about water use and water efficiency, as well as habitat. So it's going to continue to increase over time, in my opinion,” said Derby Canyon Natives owner Mel Asher.

Since the early 2000s, the Peshastin-based nursery has been sourcing and growing native plants for homeowners and large restoration projects in North Central Washington. Each year, Asher grows approximately 150,000 plants ranging over 120 different native species.

Over the years, Asher has seen a growing interest in native plants as landowners become increasingly aware of the benefits. Because they are adapted to the local climate and soil, native plants are often more resilient, low maintenance, and require less resources to keep alive, compared to non-native species. Additionally, they attract native pollinators that are dependent on specific native plant species. 

“[A] big challenge is just keeping up with demand right now. It seems like [there’s] such a growing interest in gardening and landscaping, and between interest from landowners and all of the habitat projects that we provide plants for, I'm routinely selling out of species,” said Asher.

Design services for promoting ecosystem health have also become popular. Former public lands conservationist and co-owner of the recently opened Alpenglö Living Hannah Dewey offers landscape and garden design implementation, soil health consultation, crop rotation and integrated pest management guidance, and vegetation recommendations that incorporate native plants and pollinators.

“I'm very into this concept of helping homeowners create these backyard stewardship gardens...We live in the wildland-urban interface, so a lot of homeowners here live directly adjacent to public land. So how do we kind of merge, [or] create this more cohesive ecosystem?  And I think that that can really happen at a personal level,” said Dewey.

Another Leavenworth-based business, Shelter and Seeds, offers landscape consultation, design, and implementation with ecological land and water stewardship at the focus.

“When you work with the land in a more ecological or natural way, it's easier, it's cheaper, and it's more sustainable. A lot of people get overwhelmed, and they say, “Oh, I don’t have a green thumb. I can't do this’...It’s very approachable if you can just kind of learn some simple aspects of what you're doing,” said owner Sean Eriksen.

In addition to assisting with native grass lawns and native gardens, Eriksen’s work also includes creating edible gardens, water retention earthworks, food forests, and compost systems, all of which contribute to a sustainable and regenerative landscape.

“For the last few centuries or so or more, land stewardship has mostly been extractive….We're now in an ecosystem that is relatively scarce in terms of food, medicine, materials and biodiversity. So regenerative landscape is aiming towards bringing back the richness of ecosystems used to be and then expanding on that,” said Eriksen.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media