Listen here:
It was a sunny but cool morning at the Mojave Desert Land Trust on Friday for the official opening of their Mojave Desert Discovery Garden – a land rehabilitation project that broke ground in March of 2019 on a former parking lot that was situated just west of the MDLT headquarters building. After years of hard work from volunteers, MDLT staff and agency partnerships, the native garden was officially declared open with the cutting of a seasonably-appropriate bright red ribbon.
The large curated garden is filled with native flora laid out in themes like a Palm Oasis, or pollinator gardens which hold plants that will attract birds, bees and endangered species such as the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus).
The pathways are easy to walk and each garden and plant has signage that provides information in up to four different languages – including the native language of the Serrano people. Director of Land Conservation Sarah Bliss spoke before the ribbon cutting, acknowledging the land that the new garden and the MDLT headquarters sits on:
Sarah Bliss: “We’re on the traditional territory of the Serrano, the Cahuilla, the Chemehuevi and Mojave peoples. However, with the project and the area we are in, it’s a very sacred landscape for the Serrano. This travel corridor – it is very important that we give recognition to the Serrano tribe on the landscape that we’re on here.”
The Mojave remains a place of travel for wildlife and plants . Madena Asbell is the Director of Plant Conservation Programs at the MDLT. She spoke about the importance of keeping desert such as ours corridors open – a swath of land which spans from Joshua Tree National Park, out toward the Marine Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, and up though the Mojave National Preserve and into Death Valley National Park.
Madena Asbell: “What a lot of people may not realize is just how much space wildlife needs to move freely, to reproduce, find food and mates and things like that. We need to keep these corridors open so that wildlife and plants can move and adapt to a changing climate.”
The BLM and land trusts like the MDLT are a big part of keeping wildlife corridors like the Mojave desert open and capable of sustaining the animals that move through it. Since its founding in 2006, the total amount of Mojave and Colorado desert that the trust has protected in California is over 110,000 acres – that’s roughly the size of Sweden.
They’ve also grown over 100,000 native plants that they use in desert conservation, seed harvesting and storing, as well as for their mega-popular native plant sale where hi-desert denizens line-up to get their hands on established and responsibly-grown native plants for their homes.
Most of us here in the Morongo Basin understand that we coexist with the wildlife here – I’ve occasionally had to guide a tarantula through my garage or give a Mojave green rattler a respectful distance while on a hike through my neighborhood. It’s these areas that can benefit the most from native plants – blurring the border between our domesticated lifestyle and the wild that exists just outside our doors here in the hi-desert.
Kelly Herbison: “One of the best things you can do as a resident, no matter where you live, is to ‘rewild’ your yard. Planting those native plants will bring back those pollinators and those birds and animals that historically lived there.”
Kelly Herbinson is the Co-Executive Director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust. She says that the garden gives visitors better access to a wider variety of desert plants than what you’d normally see just taking a stroll through the desert. It will also hopefully help educate visitors on how these native plants fit into our greater desert ecosystem.
“They are food for certain species, they are shelter for certain species. So this garden really helps people learn and understand the roles of all our desert plants out here.”
There are plants in the garden that are native to our Mojave desert, but may not naturally grow in our granite and quartz-heavy soil up here in the hills. For instance, the festively named Desert Holly (Atriplex hymenelytra) thrives in basalt and rocky volcanic areas such as the Amboy crater or Death Valley. The Desert Discovery Garden has these and other plants that you’d normally have to go trekking to find.
Herbinson says that 95% of the plants in the Discovery garden were propagated from plants or planted from seed from the Mojave Desert Land Trust’s own seed bank and nurseries.
Despite being on the cusp of winter, there are many beautiful examples of native plants thriving in the garden. The wide paths and self-guided nature of the garden make it an excellent place to bring visitors to the Morongo Basin as its an always-evolving example of what any backyard or vacant lot can look like with a little planting, propagating and watering to get things established.
Here again is Medina Asbell:
“I just want to invite the community to come and visit frequently. Gardens are always works in progress, they are always growing.. they are always changing. There is always something new to see.”
The Mojave Desert Discovery Garden is open from sunrise to sunset at the Mojave Desert Land Trust’s headquarters – located at 60124 29 Palms Highway in beautiful Joshua Tree, California.
Links:
Ribbon-cutting officially opens Mojave Desert Discovery Garden
The Mojave Desert Land Trust Discovery Garden
The Seed Bank at Mojave Desert Land Trust
Buy Native Seeds at the MDLT Shop
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