Edmonds native plant demo garden set to be officially renamed in honor of founder Susie Schaefer

Susie Schaefer relates how she began and helped spearhead the Edmonds Wildlife Habitat and Native Plant Demonstration Garden. (Photo by Larry Vogel)

Tireless volunteer, bird and native plant enthusiast, and community booster Susie Schaefer will be honored this Tuesday, Feb. 4 as the Edmonds City Council is scheduled to officially rename the Edmonds Wildlife Habitat and Native Plant Demonstration Garden as the Susie Schaefer Wildlife and Native Plant Community Garden.

“I’ve never had anything named after me in my life,” said an astonished Schaefer when she learned of the plan.

Schaefer founded the garden in 2009 on what was then an overgrown patch of land adjacent to the Willow Creek Fish Hatchery at 95 Pine Street. The first job was to clear the land, and Schaefer mobilized an army of volunteers and coordinated large work parties to remove dense thickets of blackberry and other non-native invasive plants, replacing them with hundreds of native plants obtained from a variety of sources.

More than a learning center, the demo garden offers a quiet retreat. (Photo by Laura Walls)

But installing native plants was only part of Schaefer’s vision for the garden.

Her larger dream for the garden was – and still is – to combine learning with hands-on opportunities and knowledge that participants could take home and apply to their own residences or shared community spaces. To facilitate that, she coordinated frequent classes and programs about local wildlife and plants, and how to “go native” with your garden, hosting free sessions at the hatchery classroom on site.

Susie Schaefer pauses for a photo during a garden work party. (Photo courtesy City of Edmonds)

“My goal has always been to get more people that will support wildlife and our natural environment in Edmonds and not just live in a real sterile suburbia,” she said.

An energetic, natural-born organizer, Schaefer worked with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to have the demo garden certified as a National Wildlife Habitat, which soon led to the City of Edmonds being recognized as a certified Community Wildlife Habitat. Edmonds became the 41st city in the nation to receive that recognition from the NWF.

Pathways and interpretive signage greet visitors to the demo garden. (Photos by Chris Walton)

A woman of many talents and callings, Schaefer’s earlier life didn’t provide many hints of the role she would one day play as an influential environmentalist and community organizer/advocate.

“I’m a native Californian, and grew up in the Palo Alto area,” she said. She holds an undergraduate degree in social work, and in the 1980s moved to Seattle to attend graduate school at the University of Washington School of Social Work.

“Most people go into social work because they want to be counselors, but that never attracted me,” she explained.  “My interest was in community organization, so I took all the coursework I could get in that area.”

After graduation, she worked for many years for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), eventually heading up the DSHS Northwest office in Everett. She also formed her own nonprofit, Open Doors for Multicultural Families, which advocates for systemic changes to improve the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

After retiring from her social work career and knowing she had more to offer, she put up her antennae to look for other places to apply her passion for organizing and doing good works.

Susie Schaefer shows off her favorite T-shirt. (Photo by Larry Vogel)

“That’s when I got involved with the Audubon Society,” Schaefer said. Through Audubon, she discovered a new passion for birds, plants and nature, eventually serving as vice president of the Pilchuck Audubon Society. (Read the letter from current Pilchuck Audubon Executive Director Brian Zinke in support of renaming the demo garden for Schaefer here.)

In 2020, Schaefer’s admirers organized an 80th birthday party for her. But with the COVID pandemic at its height, the organizers opted to hold the celebration on Zoom. With more than 100 in attendance, it was a festive affair. Many shared their memories and tributes for Schaefer’s tireless efforts. Among these was then-City Councilmember Diane Buckshnis, who observed that “Susie Schaefer has been a voice for nature and force to be reckoned as her compassion is infectious. She was instrumental in making the demonstration garden by rolling up her sleeves, smiling kindly and offering words of encouragement of a global vision to restore a habitat and garden for Edmonds. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for her tenacity and strength to promote the environment.”

The Feb. 4 council meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the council chambers, Public Safety Complex, 250 5th Ave. N., Edmonds. It is also streamed live on the council meeting webpage, Comcast channel 21 and Ziply channel 39.

— By Larry Vogel

  1. Well deserved my “old” friend and mentor!
    Her accomplishments would fill volumes (at DSHS alone).
    And other volumes could describe her community service.

  2. My wife and I have worked with Susie at the Garden since 2010. When I retired from NOAA in 2018 Susie came to my retirement party. She told visitors and my former boss and colleagues “Hi I’m Susie Schaefer…and now I’m Alan’s Boss!” We have so many memories of our times with her…and under her guidance and command! What a joy to support her at the Council meeting this week.

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