2014 was a busy year for the Borderlands Restoration (BR) community. From educational workshops to restoration projects, to citizen science, to propagating native plants, we worked hard to restore and better support the biological diversity within our watershed. All this work wouldn’t have been achieved without many dedicated volunteers. Here I want to share the […]
Molly McCormick
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Looking for the Desert in Bloom
Even if we don’t see hillsides bedecked with our favorite wildflowers, I bet somewhere in the grasslands and pine-oak woodlands, there will be a microhabitat in full bloom. Just follow the hummingbirds—they know the way.
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Learning From Legos
Collaboration is key to increasing the resiliency and health of our watershed. I remember learning about collaboration around the Legos set as a kid. My brother Mike knew how to create the perfect stairs in the castle walls that I built. Created together, our structures had both style and function. Well, Borderlands Restoration has been […]
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Growing Native Plants for Ecosystem Health
Native plants play important ecological roles in the health of our Sonoita Creek watershed. Native grasses provide food for species such as the rare Baird’s sparrow, as it overwinters in the grasslands. Milkweeds are essential for monarch and queen butterfly caterpillars; these butterflies won’t lay eggs on any other plants. The seeds of our oak […]
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Restructuring and Renewal
Most of the Santa Cruz and San Pedro watersheds were historically a cienega habitat without gullies and erosion channels. Borderlands Restoration crews have been working at the Babocomari Ranch, south of Elgin, for the past two summers, building erosion-control structures that function by slowing rainwater, increasing soil moisture to support plant life, stabilizing soils to […]
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Grasshoppers: The New Superfood?
Who knew grasshoppers and cicadas could taste so good? And, according to local medical researcher Binx Selby, the thing that could give us greater arterial health is also the largest local grassland predator insect: grasshoppers! But stay away from ‘rainbow’ grasshoppers—these species eat poisonous plants and are therefore toxic.
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Through the Eyes of a Botanist
The abundance of life in the grasslands during monsoon season is such a treat! Come with me as I take a deeper look. Imagine we are walking around in the green abundance, hoping to avoid chiggers and looking for flowering plants. We are among the tall, slender side-oats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), with its bowing seed […]
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Gazing at the Garden
As I gaze out the open window, sipping my morning tea, I observe the activity in my backyard. The patch of green under the massive sycamore brings a smile to my face; it is my own little ecological habitat, a collection of symbols that connect me to place.
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B. E. C. Youth Institute in Full Swing
This year’s BECY institute returning members Carlos Mingura, Jodie Quiroga, Johnny Montanez, and Felix Wharton hard at work. Imagining and practicing land stewardship and ecological restoration in local watersheds is the purpose of the Borderlands Earth Care Youth Institute (BECY). “Being in BECY has made me more aware of a lot that is going on […]
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Help Fuel Our Pollinators
Spring has sprung, the pollinators are migrating, but do they have enough to eat? Borderlands Restoration and community volunteers have been monitoring flowers on the landscape, and we have noticed a gap in flowers and thus available nectar each year in May and June. Local hummingbird researcher Susan Wethington of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network has […]