Article and photos by Cari Powell, Pollinator Habitat Enhancement Project Manager.
Bzzzzz, buzz. Have you heard the excitement? There has been a lot happening at the Pollinator Habitat Enhancement Project site this spring!
In late February, we hosted a special workday In Memory of Alice Duquet, mother of Friends of Bosque del Apache Executive Director, Deb Caldwell. Alice was a lifelong Socorro County resident with a great passion for birds, flowers, plants and Bosque del Apache. Honoring her legacy by nurturing the very things she cherished made this day especially meaningful.
During this workday, sixteen volunteers planted fifty native trees and shrubs. Most of the species had previously been planted at the site, but we added four new – New Mexico Olive (Forestiera pubescens), Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa), False indigo (Amorpha fruticose) and Woods’ rose (Rosa woodsia). If you want to see the list of all species planted at the site to date, you can check it out HERE.
During a second spring workday at the site, sixteen volunteers from New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors joined BdA Lead Ranger Amanda Walker and me to assist in clearing out dead willows, kochia and johnsongrass along the southwest portion of the trail. We installed two new benches along the trail that day as well!
These two workdays brought our total number of volunteer hours at the site to a staggering 783 hours!
I’m so grateful for all the folks who have supported this project with their time, resources, energy and funding. It truly takes a community to make a project like this possible and we couldn’t do it without you!
Walking around the pollinator site this spring has given me the opportunity to check in on all the past plantings. Some of them have gotten shockingly large over the last year. Desert plants have evolved to be slow growers, but every plant in the ground is a revolutionary statement of support and hope for the future. I always say, “The best time to plant a tree is yesterday!”
In addition to these workdays, we also hosted a tour of the site during our Spring Migration Celebration in early May. The tour consisted of a walk around the site, information on how and why we chose the plants we did and information on forthcoming educational signage at the Observation Blind. It was a great opportunity for everyone in attendance to really enjoy being at the site together, celebrating all the progress that’s been made.
If you are curious about the Pollinator Habitat Enhancement Project and want your own guided tour of the site, save the date for our upcoming Summer Pollinator Fiesta on Saturday, August 15. In addition to a tour of the Pollinator Habitat Enhancement Project site, we’ll host classes about hummingbirds found in New Mexico, the expansion of the River for Monarch project into the River for Pollinators and more! Stay tuned for more information to hit your email inboxes as August gets closer!