Over a thousand Western Red Cedar and hundreds of Douglas Fir and Valley Pine were set in, along with understory trees and shrubs like vine maple, ninebark and spirea. The race was on for the sunlight. As our seedlings grew, they would create shade, and eventually their expanding branches would connect, forming a “closed canopy”, which in theory would suffocate the light hungry invasive species below. In the meantime, we had several years of battle ahead of us.