The Mukilteo Wildlife Habitat Project will be officially celebrating the certification of Mukilteo as a Community Wildlife Habitat on March 24 and dedicating the Library Wildlife Garden. We invite you to join us at this event. It is from noon to 3p.m. at the library.

Volunteers came to the Mukilteo Sno-Isle Library on the Dec.17 to prepare the soil for planting the Library Wildlife Garden. We are planting native plants in the garden, and we were asked by some of the volunteers why we would be planting native plants exclusively.

With your help, our Mukilteo Wildlife Habitat Team has met all the requirements for certifying Mukilteo as a Community Wildlife Habitat. Congratulations, Mukilteo!

We are so close to reaching our goal of becoming a Certified Community Wildlife Habitat that I have no doubt that we will be soon be reporting that Mukilteo is certified.

We now have only 18 more yards to certify before becoming a Community Wildlife Habitat.

I love maps, so when we started the Mukilteo Wildlife Habitat Project having a map showing all the certified properties was essential.

Since my last column in The Beacon, 27 more homes have been certified as wildlife habitat in Mukilteo. We now have 110 homes certified with only 40 more to go before Mukilteo becomes a National Wildlife Federation Community Wildlife Habitat.

Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) is a shrub in the pea family that was used in its native Europe as a broom.

The Mukilteo Wildlife Habitat Project is in its second year, working toward certifying Mukilteo as a National Wildlife Federation Community Wildlife Habitat. Eighty-two wonderful Mukilteo residents have certified their backyards; we need to certify 68 more to certify the city.

It might surprise you that English holly and English (cherry) laurel are targets of my invasive-plant mania, but these two have spread unwanted from neighborhood yards to my own.

Himalayan and evergreen blackberries are two well-known invasive plants that are seen in dense thickets along the Mukilteo Speedway and elsewhere in the community. The thorny shrubs are difficult and painful to remove, but it is possible.

Knotweed is one of the world’s most noxious weeds. Once established, it takes on a life of its own, shading out our native plants and destroying habitat. As I drive up 92nd Street, to my right and to my left I see patches of knotweed; on 44th Avenue and 76th Street, along Goat Trail Road and Japanese Gulch Creek – this menace is there.

I am obsessed with ridding my yard, and Mukilteo parks and open spaces of English Ivy. I want ivy out.