The Gardens of Green Valley Grow Larger

By Matt Griffiths

Gardens on the Green grant work continues with new birding area at park

I had just arrived and was already overwhelmed by the colorful details and obvious care that has gone into creating and maintaining Desert Meadows Park when I met Chuck Parsons. As fate would have it, the very first person I ran into and struck up a conversation with was the proclaimed “mayor” of this beautiful 4 acre wonderland of plants, art, and community. Or maybe it wasn’t fate—Chuck oversees the large volunteer crew that enthusiastically keeps the place running, so of course he’s happy to speak about the park with anyone who comes his way.

Started by the Green Valley Gardeners Club in 2014, Desert Meadows Park has been on Tucson Audubon’s radar for a while. Participants in our Habitat at Home program live in the neighborhood, and Urban Habitat Restoration Manager Kari Hackney had eyed the park as a potential work site. The opportunity to work there arose with the Gardens on the Green grant Tucson Audubon received to expand our Habitat at Home program, urban habitat restoration, and educational programs into Green Valley. Through these connections, Kari was linked to Joyce Hayes, a volunteer who has overseen her small plot in the park for four years. Perfectly situated to be the first natural bird viewing area in the park, Joyce’s garden looks out into a wash from a shady spot under a mature mesquite tree that includes an Aldo Leopold wildlife watching bench.

Tucson Audubon recently installed 80 native plants to create a lush garden for hummingbirds and other pollinators, as well as a more-wild salt bush hedge that will draw in quail, sparrows, and maybe a rare migrant such as a Magillivray’s Warbler in the right season. Broad-billed Hummingbirds zipped around and Bewick’s Wrens called from wolfberry bushes on my morning in the park. Located just feet from the historic Anza Trail, it’s hoped that Joyce’s plot inspires people to create similar gardens and leads to more Tucson Audubon projects in the Green Valley area. 

 

This was the third and final habitat install under the Gardens on the Green grant, which also included work at the nearby Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona Green Valley and the Joyner-Green Valley Library. The grant also made possible a workshop series, a lecture series, and presentations to various HOAs about the importance of home wildlife habitats.  

Desert Meadows Park is an amazing neighborhood service project that really has to be seen to be believed. It’s volunteer-run and completely funded by donations, an annual art auction, and its self-serve plant nursery. It’s also an eBird hotspot—visit soon, watch birds, meet people, and find inspiration in the creative community that exists there.

Matt Griffiths is the Communications Coordinator for Tucson Audubon. 

 

 

 

 

Note: For those of you who also like to bird north of the park along the Anza Trail, there is a new hotspot that you can use that will keep those reports separate from those birds seen at Desert Meadows.

Anza Trail--north of Desert Meadows Park https://ebird.org/hotspot/L17264691

If you bird both locations, ideally it would be great for you to use a separate checklist for each location.