Butterfly “Gardens” in Penasquitos Canyon Preserve
by Mike Kelly
The Friends, in partnership with the City Rangers and the A.L. Clinton Foundation, plan to restore some weed infested or degraded lands in the Preserve with nectar heavy plantings. The A.L. Clinton Foundation focuses on promoting the preservation of the endangered Monarch and other butterflies through the planting of nectar plants in gardens, and now, in our Preserve. The foundation has already paid for the installation of butterfly friendly plants in over a hundred gardens around the rim of Penasquitos Canyon!
Several months ago, the Clinton Foundation made an unrestricted gift of $10,000 to the Friends as a goodwill gesture to our future partnership. Since then, we have met with the City Rangers to plan our possible restoration areas where we could emphasize nectar plantings. We identified several areas. Some would be installed by the Friends and others by the Rangers. One area is the West End Parking Staging Area. There are border areas there filled with invasive plants such as Black mustard that are begging to be replanted with natives. This will be a Friends project. Another Friends project will be adding more butterfly friendly plants to our “Fennel Forest” site.
The Fennel Forest site is close to the west end of Penasquitos Canyon, just upstream from where the trail from the staging area comes up and over the hill. Under a grant from the Protect Our Preserves (POPs) Foundation the Friends hired contractors to kill the fennel forest, a large infection of this highly invasive weed. This area should be a grassland area suitable for the Northern harrier, which historically has used the nearby Harrier Hill as a nesting site. POPs also provided funding to clean up invasive from Harrier Hill. Tall weeds such as mustard and fennel prevent the birds from nesting there. So, this grant allowed us to clean up two areas important for the Northern harrier. In the past we did have active nesting there and in another location in Lopez Canyon. Even as the weed work was underway a Northern harrier was flying in the area!
The City Rangers have several restoration sites going in the Preserve, including one near the Canyonside sports fields and another at the Waterfall. The idea there is to add more nectar plants to the restoration sites.
If you would like to help restore these areas, please contact us at: 858-863-7393.
