Oak-Meadow Restoration on Natural & Working Lands

UNPP and local partners are working with Natural & Working Landowners at three sites in Douglas County to restore oak meadows and learn how different restoration methods can be used together.

Oak meadows are dynamic, fire-adapted ecosystems. Without active stewardship, invasive plants can replace native meadow communities, woody vegetation can close once-open habitats, and the native plants that support pollinators and wildlife can decline. This four-year project puts restoration into practice while creating places where landowners and community members can see the work, participate in it, and learn from the results.

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An Ecological Toolkit for Restoration

Every piece of land is different. Restoration at a wet meadow dominated by knapweed requires a different approach than an oak woodland being overtaken by conifers.

Rather than relying on one treatment, we are using an integrated ecological toolkit that may include mowing and brushing, invasive plant control, tarping, selective thinning, prescribed fire, biochar, native seeding, pollinator plantings, and natural regeneration.

We will monitor how the land responds and use what we learn to guide the next treatment. The goal is to develop practical approaches that Natural & Working Landowners can adapt to their own oak meadows and woodlands.

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Three Restoration Sites

Elkton Reserve | Elkton
A former pasture surrounded by oak woodland is being prepared for native meadow restoration. The focus is reducing non-native pasture grasses and thatch, followed by ecological fire where appropriate and native seeding to rebuild a diverse oak-prairie plant community. 

Ford’s Pond Community Park | Sutherlin
Along the pond, dense meadow knapweed has displaced much of the native herbaceous vegetation. Restoration is focused on reducing invasive plants while protecting wetlands and existing native vegetation, then returning native wet-meadow and prairie species to the site. 

Yew Creek Land Alliance | Myrtle Creek
Here, much of the native oak woodland and meadow community remains intact. Restoration is focused on protecting what is already there—reducing conifer encroachment and overcrowding, reconnecting meadow openings, improving conditions around legacy oaks, and using prescribed fire and native seeding to maintain an open oak-savanna mosaic

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What We Hope to Accomplish

Using established guidance for private oak landowners, we are taking restoration from the guidebook to the ground. Natural & Working Landowners will gain hands-on experience with invasive plant management, mowing, tarping, thinning, prescribed burning, biochar production and application, native seeding, pollinator habitat development, and natural regeneration—learning how these tools can be selected, combined, and sequenced for different ecological sites and starting conditions.

Our three sites provide very different places to learn: a non-native fallowed pasture at Elkton Reserve, an invasive-dominated wet meadow at Ford’s Pond, and a relatively intact highly competitive oak-on-oak woodland and meadow system at Yew Creek. Each site presents different ecological challenges and opportunities, allowing landowners to see when, where, and why different restoration tools are used.

Through field-based training—including site prep to seeding/planting events, Learn-to-Burn opportunities and hands-on biochar demonstrations—landowners can build the practical skills needed to carry these approaches back to their own oak meadows, savannas, woodlands, and other Natural & Working Lands.

Hands-on workshops and field days will bring landowners, restoration practitioners, crews, volunteers, and community members together to learn about invasive plant management, site preparation, prescribed fire, biochar, native seeding, seed harvesting, and long-term stewardship.

By the end of the project, we aim to restore 10–15 acres, increase connectivity and ecological function, install 3 pollinator gardens, and seed 2–3 acres of meadow with locally produced native seed across all three sites. Additionally, the project will establish 5–7 native seed production beds and aim to build a 200-pound bank of regionally adapted native seed for restoration.

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Get Involved

This work is meant to be shared.

Throughout the project, there will be opportunities to join restoration workdays, native seeding and planting events, biochar demonstrations, prescribed-fire learning opportunities, seed collection and cleaning, field tours, and other hands-on workshops. 
Follow UNPP for upcoming volunteer days, workshops, field events, and project updates. Contact us below!

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Thank You

Thank you to our Natural & Working Landowners, community partners, and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB) for supporting and funding the Collaborative Oak Meadow Restoration Training and Seed Banking for Community Climate Resilience project!