What is a Rain Garden?

A rain garden is an area designed to use the rainwater from your roof; the extra water collected can create an attractive landscape feature that receives significantly more “rainfall” than the surrounding landscape. The depression for the collection of the runoff is a small “pond” in which the storm water is naturally filtered and runoff from your property is reduced. A rain garden typically uses native plants; these are species that are indigenous to a specific region. Plants in our rain gardens at the Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area are native to central New Mexico. Unlike many nursery species, these plants are adapted to the local soil and climate. Once established, native plants will require less water and less maintenance than non-native species; they will not need fertilizer. Importantly, these natives will not spread and harm our natural areas and they provided the best habitat for our local plants and animals. We have two large retention basins at Whitfield that have been planted as rain gardens. We used the gardens to our advantage in establishing some wildlife habitat near our visitors’ and education center. Our southern basin is planted with plants native to the Chihuahuan Desert and our northern basin is planted with plants native to the foothills of the Manzano Mountains. For the first year we hand watered with a hose from a faucet or used our water tank to give the plants supplemental water to get them established. Now the plants have grown, are flourishing, and we no longer need to give them additional water, at least not as of summer 2015. This may change in times of drought, but it will certainly give them an advantage even then with whatever water is available from rainfall. Any homeowner can add a rain garden to their yard and keep more water on their

site. Basically all you need to do is direct your home rooftop runoff to a shallow,

excavated area. The garden size for a single family home will typically range

from 150 to 400 square feet. Add some native plants, or wait to see what

emerges. There will probably be some weeding of non-native weeds at this point. Some native plants that have performed well here at Whitfield include chamisa

(Ericameria nauseosus), Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa), desert willow

(Chilopsis linearis), chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata), and giant sacaton

(Sporobolus wrightii).

The first newsletter of the Valencia Soil and

Water Conservation District! Valencia Soil & Water Kids

Soils Testing We offer soil testing assis-tance for producers and home gardeners within the District area. For producers we cover the cost of a ‘standard’ panel of tests including pH, elec-trical conductivity (EC), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), organic matter (OM), inorganic nitrogen (nitrate-N or ammonium-N), phosphorus (P) – Olsen method, potassium (K), texture, and micronutrients such as iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and cop-per (Cu). An excellent primer on sampling for New Mexico soils is online at http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/A146/welcome.html or if you would like a hard copy, we can mail to you. There are other useful publications on soils at http://aces.nmsu.edu , and all with contact infor-mation for help with anal-ysis of your test results. For more information about our program, please contact our office or go to our website.

Spring 2016

Newsletter

Volume 1 Issue 1

The Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area Outdoor Classroom is our yearly education program consisting

of five lessons, including one outdoor classroom at WWCA, provided to 4th grade students at participating

schools within Valencia County. This program addresses New Mexico Science Standards and Common

Core State Standards, and offers students opportunities to engage in scientific investigations while applying

reading, writing and math skills. This program is run by a wonderful group of volunteer retired Belen and

Los Lunas School District teachers!

So far this school year, the education program has made 5,287 contacts and has visited 14 Valencia

county elementary schools! Plus, we still have two months left of this

school year and nearly 1,000 more scheduled contacts left to make in

that time!

To schedule this program call (505)864-6460 or email:

whitfieldeducation@gmail.com

Whitfield Education Program

Save the dates: April

15-17, 2016

Location : Sacramento

Camp and Conference

Center, Sacramento, NM

Envirothon is a hands-on environmental problem solving competition for high school-age students in the United States and Canada. Participating teams compete in five natural resource categories: soils and land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife, and current environmental issues.

Teams of 5 students must prepare themselves for this two-day outdoor competition held in April. Teams work to answer natural resource questions and develop solutions to environmental problems.

The New Mexico Envirothon consists of two components. At the outdoor competition, students conduct a series of in-field investigations followed by testing, which includes multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions in each of the five subject areas. Second, the oral presentation component presents students with a real-world resource problem. They must develop a management strategy to address the problem and present their solution to a panel of judges.

www.nmenvirothon.org/

During this year’s regular legislative session the Joint Memorial for Environmental Education (HJM3 and SJM4) moved through the House Rules Committee, the House floor vote and the Senate Rules & Conservation Committees and was approved at the last minute by the Senate floor vote thanks to the hard work and tireless efforts of a number of EEANM partners, including Friends of Whitfield educators and Los Lunas School district student ambassadors! The joint memorial recognizes the importance of environmental education, highlights the numerous educators who developed NM’s environmental literacy plan, and asks for four things: The legislature to affirm the importance of environmental education The governor to declare an “Environmental Education Week” in April,

encourage all K-12 teachers and state agencies to celebrate environmental education by spending at least one hour of learning time outdoors

NM Game & Fish to lead a study on the feasibility of an EE grant program (in cooperation with State Parks, State Forestry, State Land Office, Dept. of Health, Public Ed., CYFD, and Cultural Affairs)

Public Education Department to link to the environmental literacy plan as a resource for teachers.

(EEANM website, 2016) Rep. Kelly Fajardo and Sen. Michael Sanchez had similar versions of the memorial moving through each house in an effort to fast track the memorial. Katherine Gallegos Elementary School 4th grade students (pictured) were at the Roundhouse to testify to the House Committee and the Senate Rules Committee.

Golden Currant (Ribes aureum)

Golden Currant is a small shrub that grows three to six feet tall, making it ideal for home landscapes. It gets its name from the clusters

of golden-yellow flowers that cover it in early spring. The spicy-scented flowers are attractive to various pollinators including honey

bees, wild bees, and butterflies. The flowers are followed by dark, reddish-black berries that are relished by birds, other wildlife, and

people. The fruits make a fine currant jelly. Golden currant is long-lived and fast growing. It spreads by rhizomes, forming small

thickets of stems.

Golden currant is native to riparian areas, including the Rio

Grande Valley, throughout its large geographic range from

California to Texas, and Mexico to Canada. It grows at

elevations from 2,500 to 8,000 feet.

In the home landscape, it is an ideal native substitute for

forsythia. It is cold hardy to -30 F. It can take full sun or

partial shade and is tolerant of most soils. At lower

elevations, it requires extra watering, especially over the

summer. The maple-like leaves turn beautiful shades of

burgundy, red, and yellow in the fall.

At Whitfield, golden currant can be seen growing in a number of areas, particularly in the riparian buffer areas.

There is a new addition to the landscaping around the Whitfield visitor's center, a cactus garden. Located in

the Chihuahuan Desert sec-tion of the landscaping, it

features cacti of that ecore-gion.

The garden, including an interpretive sign, was par-tially funded with a grant from PNM through the Central New Mexico

Audubon Society. We have planted a wide variety of cacti and succulents with

room for many more plants.

Volunteers from the Whit-field Master Naturalist Pro-gram and the Friends of the Whitfield Wildlife Conser-vation Area collected rock that was donated by New Mexico Travertine and

place among the border of the garden.

Students from the School of Dreams Academy re-cently planted some cacti that they grew from seed

collected in the area. Most of the plants in the cactus garden are small now, but in a few years they will be

producing beautiful flowers for pollinators and people

to enjoy.

VSWCD Financial Assistance Program

New VSWCD Board Members

April 1 - Valencia County

Expo @ UNM-VC Campus

April 9 - Friends of Whit-

field Annual Meeting

April 16 - Master

Naturalist walk

April 16 - Garden Talk: Edi-

ble and Useful Native Plants

April 23 - WWCA Earth Day

Celebration

April 28 – Audubon

Thursday Birders

May 7 - Master

Naturalist Bioblitz

May 14 - International Migra-

tory Bird day and Garden

Talk: Hummingbirds

May 21- Master

Naturalist walk

May 21 - Turtle Day: Where

Have All the Turtles Gone?

World

The Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District (VSWCD) is planning implement a pilot financial assistance program. Possible assistance areas may include:

Rangeland Assistance: Erosion-control projects that have conservation plan from the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) or equivalent, with support and technical assistance. Cropland Assistance: Soils testing. Riparian Restoration and promotion of native habitat along drains. Water Harvesting Pollinator enhancement and gardens. Ongoing efforts to built technical capacity and improve public outreach and education.

The program is in the beginning phases and more information will follow in future

newsletters, on our website (www.valenciaswcd.org) and Facebook page.

The VSWCD Board of Supervisors welcomes their two newest Supervisors!

Jeff Goebel was appointed in March 2015 and then during the May 2015 Election of Supervisors for Seats 1, 2, and 5 was elected to Seat 5. Mr. Goebel recently moved to Belen, New Mexico with intent to farm on a five acre property. He has also served in a leadership capacity as a private consultant, facilitator, and planner.

Richard Bonine, Jr. was appointed to Seat 7 in December 2015 following support by the Governor of Laguna to serve on the Board, on behalf of the Pueblo. Mr. Bonine is currently serving as their Rangeland Director in their Natural Resources Department. Mr. Bonine has nearly 30 years of professional experience in agriculture, natural resources, and range management.

Please visit our website at www.valenciaswcd.org to learn more about all of our Board of Supervisors!

More information is available about these upcoming events at www.valenciaswcd.org

(505)864-6460

(505)864-8914

2424 Hwy 47

Belen, NM 87002

P.O. Box 170

Belen, NM 87002