‘Green Up’ Event Held At Warm Springs

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A first annual “Green Up Day” event was held at the Warm Springs Natural Area on Saturday, Oct. 9.

More than 70 volunteers from throughout the region, as well as a crew of Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) staffers, attended. They came to help plant about 1,500 native species of foliage in about two acres of ground at the north end of the Natural Area.

“It is a good turnout and perfect weather,” said event coordinator Von Winkel, a Restoration Ecologist for the SNWA. “It is great to have so many people come and spend an afternoon here.”

Winkel said that the goal for the day was to begin returning this large field back to its natural state, before the area was ever settled with agriculture. This would include varieties of saltbrush, native grasses, screwbean mesquites and more.

During its ranching history, the field would have been cultivated with alfalfa, Winkel added. That continued up until the 1980s. Somewhere in there, the field had eventually been left to lie fallow, he said.

“We have just been managing it for weeds for the past 10 years,” Winkel said. “Now we are finally ready for it to be restored.”

Winkel explained that the field and its surrounding areas had been completely cleared and left blackened by a huge wildfire that took place in the summer of 2010. After that, the first plant to return was quailbrush which quickly overtook the area.

“There is nothing particularly wrong with quailbrush but it is a very opportunistic plant,” Winkel said. “It comes back fast and it tends to edge out all other plants.”

In the weeks leading up to the Green Up event, the SNWA crew had cleared the field of all of the quailbrush and other foliage. The ground was also tilled up to make a good planting bed for the new plants. Finally a drip irrigation system was spread out in straight rows across the field. With that, the field was ready for the volunteer efforts.

People began showing up for the Green Up event at about noon. They were given a lunch first and then they all set out into the field to begin the planting.

The work went quickly. Within two hours all 1,500 plants were in the ground in rows alongside each of the drip line hoses.

“These are pretty hardy desert plants so they won’t need much water,” Winkel said. “But to get them going this first year we will give them some water. We will irrigate them for a little this fall. Then we will stop watering during the winter and resume in the spring.”

Winkel said that the plants will need water about once a month during the summer months and less during the rest of the year.

Volunteer Jack Castro of Mesquite was just finishing putting his last plant in the ground. “It has been a nice day today,” he said. “It is good to get out and do something like this. I’m glad I came.”

About half of the participants came from Virgin Valley. Most of the other half came from the Las Vegas valley. The group included a Boy Scout troop, a group of Girl Scouts and adults of various ages.

Winkel said that the first annual Green Up Day was actually supposed to take place in March of 2020. But it had to be cancelled due to the sudden COVID closures at that time.

“We had all the plants lined up and the field ready to go,” Winkel said. “And two days before our event everything got shut down.”

“From here on out, we anticipate this being an annual event,” Winkel added. “We will be doing Green Ups for many years to come.”