Gardening for Wildlife and Opportunities for Citizen Science

Gardening for Wildlife

Several areas at Marquez attract butterflies and birds including the Native American Garden, the butterfly garden, some plants planted by LAUSD in the re-landscaping and some areas on the upper yard.  The landscaped area by the auditorium seems to have the most birds and the fewest squirrels. A resource for involving your students in this topic is from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology http://www.birdsleuth.org/investigation/.  Bird Sleuth has some ideas for citizen science projects. Another resource is the National Wildlife Federation. www.nwf.org/en/Garden-for-Wildlife.   

The Habitat Network, www.yardmap.com, helps people to map their outdoor spaces and see how inviting they are for wildlife. This could be done at school or home.

Activities to make a school more welcoming can include bird feeders, water, more plants for food and shelter. What are you interested in doing? What birds do you see near you?

We are adjacent to the Santa Monica Mountains and should have more birds visiting our campus.

Resources for native plants include Theodore Payne www.theodorepayne.org, Audubon www.audubon.org,  and Las Pilitas Nursery www.laspilitas.com. Some natives that we have at school include poppies, monkey flower, deer grass, yarrow, oak tree, white sage, black sage, purple sage, hummingbird sage. We'll be planting ceanothus, redbud and more in the coming months.

It's Time to Plant California Poppy Seeds

The California poppy is our state flower. Poppy seeds, along with lupine seeds, have been planted in the Marquez School Native American Garden by Ms. Palo's and Ms. Chaides' classes.  They were lightly covered with mulch and are watered weekly.  They hopefully will join with the seeds shed by last spring's poppies to create a mass of orange blossoms at the front of the school.  The poppy self seeds.

Since poppies like poor soil conditions, we will plant them in other areas around school as well and hope for winter rains.

Once the poppies bloom, we can cut them back and they will re bloom.  We can also save the seeds: when the petals drop off you see a long seed pod. Let the pod turn brown and cut it off or wait for it to open. The seeds will be inside.

Check out these articles:

The Davis Enterprise : http://www.davisenterprise.com/features/the-california-poppy-fall-planting-is-best-for-their-natural-life-cycle/;

Theodore Payne: http://www.theodorepayne.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Eschscholzia_californica

US Forest Service: https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/eschscholzia_californica.shtml

The poppy leaves are used by indigenous peoples for several things including  to relieve toothaches and headaches. Some also use the plant for food.