As I gaze out the open window, sipping my morning tea, I observe the activity in my backyard. Along with barking dogs, I hear the Curved-Bill Thrashers that have nested in the yucca, a juvenile Gray Hawk, the cooing of the Eurasian Collared Doves, the twinkling chorus of songbirds, a rooster’s crow. There are three species of fledgling hummingbirds at the feeders bobbing around awkwardly like Bambi on the ice, as they adjust to the first few days of flight. My eye follows a Dusky Flycatcher as it alights on the outstretched branch of a sycamore in the corner of the yard.
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. This small space is nothing fancy, a mish-mash of plants that happened to come my way, nestled into mulch-filled basins. I’m still obtaining my daily lunch salad from the greens I purchased as garden starts at the community garden in April. I acquired the red runner bean seeds this spring during a Patagonia Public Schools watershed presentation. The yarrow was transplanted from the mountains; I will harvest it for medicinal tea. The milkweeds are for the monarchs and were purchased at the Borderlands’ retail space. The butternut squash seeds were saved from a dinner that I purchased at Red Mountain Foods last year. The buoyant yellow blossoms of primrose and red tubular blooms of hummingbird mint are a flurry of butterfly and bee activity.
I eagerly await the burst of happiness from the Havasupai striped sunflowers, whose seeds I acquired from Native Seeds/SEARCH. The sunflower is symbolic to me because I grew up in Kansas, the Sunflower State, but this variety is extra meaningful because it was cultivated at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, my last home before Patagonia. This variety is also a hero of sorts—it helped save the sunflower seed industry in the 1990s because it was one of three varieties resistant a fungus that was working to destroy the flowers.
There are some seedlings popping up in my garden beds. I checked out the seeds for these from the Patagonia Pubic Library’s new seed library. I planted the seeds with the first monsoon rains, a traditional way to garden in this region. I enjoy participating in this way with those who came before me and continuing my role in the web of life that is my backyard in the Sonoita Creek Watershed.
Borderlands Restoration is hosting a “Design Your Own Pollinator Garden” workshop on August 3 at Third and McKeown, in downtown Patagonia. Find out more on the events page at www.borderlandsrestoration.org or on Facebook.
Molly McCormick is the Restoration Horticulturist/Outreach Specialist for Borderlands Restoration in Patagonia.