Helping dunes stand as protective sentinels along the Southwest Florida coast is more than just plopping plants in the sand.
Each week, a team of conservationists led by Naples Botanical Garden visits Collier County beaches to collect seeds and cuttings from shoreline plants that, eventually, will yield hundreds of thousands of plants needed to restore the coast.
On a recent Tuesday, they were joined by the Collier Community Foundation, the project’s primary funder. Lindsey Touchette, the Foundation’s vice president of community engagement, knelt in a windswept strip of Keewaydin Island and dug into a patch of grass.
“It doesn’t want to come out,” she said. Giving her a hand, a conservationist from Naples Botanical Garden offered her a weeding knife, and she twisted it into the soil until a clump of grass let loose.
Chad Washburn, the Garden’s vice president of conservation, looked over her shoulder and remarked, “We may need 50,000 of this plant.”
That didn't mean Touchette — or anyone else on the joint Garden/Foundation venture — had to spend the day unearthing endless bundles of saltmeadow cordgrass (Sporobolus pumilus). The conservationists will take a few handfuls of grass, return to the botanical garden and multiply it.
The Collier Community Foundation has granted $325,000 to date to support a pilot planting, community educational programming, and costs associated with collecting, propagating and producing coastal plants. (Additional funding comes from the Second Chance Foundation, a family foundation established by long-time Garden supporters.)
For more than five years, Garden conservationists have studied the region’s shorelines — undeveloped ones like Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park and urban ones like Naples Beach — to understand coastal ecosystems and how dunes protect the coast from wind and water damage.
With contributions from Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and Florida Gulf Coast University, their long-term observations have yielded novel insights into the kinds of plants that anchor the local dunes, the roles they play in collecting and holding sand, and how they respond to storms and regenerate in their aftermath.
Millions of dollars in disaster recovery and other government funds have been spent on sand renourishment projects and berms throughout Southwest Florida. The Garden is sharing its research with local governments and advising them on how to re-vegetate beaches to protect those investments.
The Garden had little to no published data for guidance; conservationists have had to figure out everything from when the plants produce seeds to how to grow them.
“No one has really cracked the code. No one knows how to do it,” Washburn said.
The Garden’s beach restoration recommendations focus on two principles: That restored beach ecosystems require a diverse mix of species to be resilient; and using local genetics is crucial because the plants are adapted to Southwest Florida’s unique conditions, such as its temperature range, wet/dry seasonal rainfall and soil types.
“In the past, beach dune restoration in Southwest Florida has primarily been done with two species. Those are sea oats and sea grapes,” Washburn said. “While those are great coastal beach dune plants, we really need a greater diversity of species. Each of the species that we’ve (recommended for) a restoration planting performs a little bit different function.”
The Collier Community Foundation agreed to fund the dune work for many reasons, including a recent community needs assessment that placed environmental issues among residents’ top concerns. Touchette said the Foundation also recognized the project’s potential to influence how regional governments approach beach restoration and create more resilient shorelines.
But following the Garden’s recommendations is proving to be challenging. Unlike landscape plants available at any commercial nursery or home improvement store, native plants for restoration are difficult to find.
A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, in fact, indicates a dire shortage of native plants needed to re-create ecosystems destroyed by fires, floods, windstorms, freezes and the like.
The Garden is part of a newly formed national group working to develop the practices and policies needed to ensure the native plant availability.
“There really is no pipeline of plants. There is no store where you can go buy the appropriate local diversity of plants that we need to restore beaches to a healthy, thriving, resilient ecosystem,” Washburn said. That’s why the Garden is combing the region’s coast for suitable plant material and working to mass produce it. Garden staff hope to partner with a community of growers to multiply the plants, as it will take millions of them to restore beaches in Collier County alone.
There’s another reason why this project is so important, said Jared Franklin, the stewardship coordinator for Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and a key partner in this endeavor.
Standing on Keewaydin’s shore, he gestured to the island and told the group that it was 5 to 6 feet under water during Hurricane Ian. “We don’t know how much longer this ecosystem will be here,” he said.
By collecting seeds and cuttings, the Garden and its partners are ensuring that the plant genetics will be protected for future generations, no matter what Mother Nature throws our way.
Jennifer Reed is Naples Botanical Garden’s Editorial Director and a longtime Southwest Florida journalist.