Evergreen Islands is pleased to announce that Phyllis Dolph is the recipient of the Yeoman Award for Environmental Stewardship award. The YES award is given to local citizens who have repeatedly said "Yes" to fostering the environment on Fidalgo Island. She'll receive the award at the Evergreen island annual meeting Sunday night.
Phyllis was the moving force behind the recent adoption of the Anacortes Tree Ordinance by the City of Anacortes. She worked with a committee to develop the ordinance, attended numerous meetings, and saw it through many hurdles until being approved by the Anacortes City Council.
Phyllis is on the steering committee of the Fidalgo Backyard Wildlife Habitat project. She was persistent is signing up at least 125 of the 500 yards that were certified as Backyard Wildlife Habitats. In August, 2008, Anacortes/Fidalgo Island was designated by the National Wildlife Federation as a Community Wildlife Habitat partly because of her great efforts. Phyllis has transformed her yard from a flat grassy yard to a colorful and varied wildlife habitat yard. She is active in the Skagit Audubon Society, Skagit Beat the Heat, as well as other groups.
Previous Yeoman Award recipients have been Margaret Yeoman, the first person honored and the one that the award is named after. Margaret is a pioneer in the local environmental movement. The next recipient was Gene Murphy, one of the founders of the Skagit Land Trust and dogged promoter of the Conservation Easement Program.
The award’s name has a dictionary meaning that is applicable to the people honored : Yeoman (adjective) - performed or rendered in a loyal, valiant, useful, or workmanlike manner, esp. in situations that involve a great deal of effort or labor.
The members of Evergreen Islands board think that those words are a fitting description of the work Phyllis Dolph has done over the years to foster a healthy environment on Fidalgo Island.
In her own words…
I have tried to plant enough trees, ferns, and native plants to make a forest here where we live. I wanted to turn our acre and a third into a naturescape, similar to Washington Park, with a movie of color up by the house to attract birds and butterflies. Now we are hoping to sell this house, along with most of my lavish flowers and treescape, to someone who appreciates all this fecund splendor.
We are going to move to another home in town near the Community Forest Lands which has a square, pinched yard. So, up will come the grass! Down will go topsoil plus my two compost piles and the contents of my worm bin. "Mountains" will be stirred, shaped and readied. Then some fine day, a bunch of friends will join us for a planting-and-pizza party and some of my most precious native plants will be transported to live over there.
Dreams of "small is beautiful" begin to fill with the canvas of my mind with color, intimate nooks and corners, and myriads of birds and butterflies. I am using my heart to guide me, with Kruckeberg's Gardening with Native Plants and Link's Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest for information. Because my husband is an important part of the landscape (landscaping) too, well, you know the rest of the story. It will be beautiful, we hope, eventually, and as natural as a small townscape can be.
Phyllis Dolph, Anacortes
Salal Chapter, Washington Native Plant Society
Apr 14, 2007