Friday, February 15, 2008

Sea Oat Planting 2008

The Winter of 06/07 we were inspired to rebuild our sand dunes,after all we are the Dunes Community with the help of our winter guests, owners, staff, and locals. The hurricanes not only damage, homes and property but, damage natural environments. After the storms our beach for all intensive purposes was flat and almost without plants. All of our sand dunes were pushed under the houses, in the subdivision pool, and in filling in parts of the natural marsh area.
With all of the help mentioned above we were able to plant almost 400 plants last year. We all received a class from naturalist in the area on how to properly plant the sea oats, the we set off planting. The winter guests and owners had such a wonderful time and we saw a huge change in the beach in just one year's time that we decided to do another planting this year.
This winter our goal was to plant 1000 plants on our dunes. Through the continued generosity of our winter guests, homeowners, and employees we were able to do make this goal a reality. Not only were we able to plant 1000 plants. We were also able with special permission to plant about 3000 sea oat seeds. All of this planting resulted in sore muscles, and sun tans for our winter guests who gave up their days helping us plant. Hopefully it will produce a bumper crop of sea oats in the next few years and build our Dunes to heights unseen in the past.

Winter Fun on the Beach


I know winter and fun on the beach do not seem to go together! This past week at the beach we have had more fun then we do most summers. We had what has become our annual Sowing Our Wild Oats Week of planting and celebration. These events center around rebuilding our Sand Dunes after they were destroyed during the hurricanes. This is a long slow process in nature but, people can help it along, a little.
Last winter about 6 monthes after I began working for Sunset Properties, we began to discuss how we can rebuild our sand dunes. The beach at the time was completely flat and almost entirely void of plants. The plants and dunes themselves are benificial to the wild life in area.
Last winter the staff, owners, and winter guests donated time, money, and lots of energy, raising money, cleaning the beach, and planting sea oats, and other plants. We had so much fun last year that we decided to make this a week long event this year. That includes not only sea oat planting, but beach clean up, Beach Golf, a Bar-B-Q, a Sea Oat King and Queen, and lots of fun... Look for updates on the week's activities, everything we did with our Wonderful Winter Guests.