The fall has proved to be a busy season for the Palm Springs field office. We hosted National Public Lands Day (a few months after the official date of National Public Lands Day, due to excessive heat) at Dos Palmas Preserve, where the majority of my work has been focused. After a visit to a local plant nursery, we were given the idea of supplementing our habitat restoration efforts with seedballs. We decided to use National Public Lands Day to recruit volunteers to make seedballs with us. If you’re wondering what a seedball consists of, here’s the magic recipe:

Our seed mix for the seedballs

Soil
Sand
Coconut fiber
Native seeds
Dry clay
Water

By including clay in the mixture the seedballs hold together, preventing ants and other hungry critters from stealing all of the seeds before they germinate. The seeds remain dormant within the seedball until a rain event occurs, and then the seedball breaks apart as the seeds begin growing. Our volunteers had a great time getting their hands dirty making seedballs with us; we had a huge turnout and got way more done than we had anticipated!

Making seedballs with volunteers

A group of National Public Lands Day volunteers with all of the seedballs they made!

A few weeks later, we coordinated a follow-up volunteer event to place the seedballs in test plots. I created a monitoring design that will be used over the next few months to determine if areas with seedballs have more seedlings coming up than areas without seedballs. I had a great time coordinating these volunteer events and learning about a new potential restoration technique; hopefully I’ll have some success stories soon!

Volunteers placing seedballs in a restoration area

A seedball waits for rain in the Colorado Desert...

A rare splash of fall color in the desert

Katie Kain
Palm Springs BLM Office