Last week we were fortunate to have a little over 300 United Healthcare volunteers join us for some habitat restoration and education.  We planted about 850 CA native plants in about 1hr and 30 min.!!  Sunday, we had a great group from Pacific Life Good Guys, local scout troop 1201, local university, local high schools, National Charity League, and individuals join us to finish planting about 450 CA native plants.  That’s a total of 1,300 CA native plants planted on the Mesa in the illegal trails in less than 1 week!!  Suffice it to say, we finished planting all the illegal trails from the Point (where the palm trees are) to the far outlook bench with 7 different CA native plant species (Coastal Sage Scrub and Grassland species) in less than 6 months. This project was projected to take at least a year, but because of hard-working volunteers during our bi-monthly Stewards habitat restoration events we have blocked the illegal trails with native plants that will grow to fill in those spots.

The illegal trails had formed in the past year or so from people walking across the dead non-native grasses or through gaps in the dormant Coastal Sage Scrub to the edge of the bluff.  Not only is this dangerous for the habitats in terms of compacted soil and opening up the area to invasive plant invasion, but also to the people themselves because the edge of the bluff is eroding away making it unstable.  Therefore, we focused on filling these illegal trails to encourage people to stay on trail, make it easier to tell where the legal trail is, and to increase the robustness of native habitat against invasive species sneaking in from the disturbance.

Check out newsletter coming to mailboxes in a few weeks to read more about that special event with United Healthcare and what the Stewards have been up to!  Don’t get our newsletter, but want to?  Become a member today and you will be added to our mailing list!

ps. for the digitally inclined, you can go to our homepage to find the latest and archival Music from the Mesa newsletters.

pps. want to join us for habitat restoration?  Visit our volunteer page to learn more!

photos: James Huang