Humming with Excitement: The Launch of a New Restoration Site

The weather is cooler, the Yellow-Rumped Warblers are abundant, and our grounds are as lush as ever. 

It is winter here at the Audubon Center at Debs Park, which means that it is peak planting season. Our planting season is a bit different than other parts of the country due to our Mediterranean climate, which offers us cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers. It is usually best to plant most of our native plants in the fall and into the winter when the weather starts to cool and the rain finally arrives. This way, the plants’ roots have a chance to establish into the ground and the young plant has a better chance of withstanding the intense summer heat.  

Our most recent restoration project at the center is a continuation on the previous year’s restoration sites. Entering the park through Griffin Ave, you'll spy the Hummingbird trail to your left. The first site along the trail is the oldest site, a section which we currently call 'Hummingbird A'. Hummingbird sites A, B, and C have been planted over the last few years and are abundant in flowering plants to provide nectar for their target species: hummingbirds. 

As you follow the trail up past the green fire gate, you will notice that the area is mostly a west-facing exposed hillside sprinkled with Southern California Black Walnuts, but dominated by Black Mustard and non-native grasses. This is our newest site of the season, Hummingbird D (soon to be renamed).

Because of full sun exposure and existing native vegetation, I chose to install plants typically found in coastal sage scrub plant communities, such as California Sagebrush, California Bush Sunflower, and White, Black, and Purple Sages. Differing from the other Hummingbird sites, this site will target Goldfinches, which benefit from seeding native shrubs. One remarkable thing about the site is that although it is small, it contains a variety of plant communities. 

Adjacent to that site is a small grove of Coast Live Oak trees which creates a distinct microclimate that differs greatly from the exposed slope. There, the air is cooler, the soil is more moist, and a thick layer of oak duff covers the ground. In that area, we are planting plants typical to the oak understory, such as Heartleaf Keckiella, Creeping Snowberry, and Hummingbird Sage. Between these two zones, we are planting plants that successfully straddle the two zones, such as Toyon and Blue Elderberry.  

As the site matures and birds, invertebrates, and other native fauna are attracted to the site, we hope that it will become a vibrant display of the incredible diversity of the native plants and animals of Los Angeles. It will also become valuable habitat for community science initiatives such as bird counts and monarch larval counts. 

Of course, all this work wouldn’t be possible without the help of our mighty team of interns and our community. The community has shown up this planting season, and hundreds of plants have already been installed. Thank you to all the volunteers that have participated thus far, and we hope that many of you will still be able to join us!