Bluebird Lane Meadow - Santa Fe, NM

As often happens in the process of new construction, a large area next to a new house in the Santa Fe County community of Arroyo Hondo was left with 1,000 square feet of raw exposed dirt that was quickly beginning to be covered in the usual early succession plants like tumbleweeds, kochia, and goat-heads. We used soil biology, plant biodiversity, and mulch to move ecological succession forward and create a beautiful prairie meadow. By increasing beneficial soil organisms (particularly fungi), we changed the soil conditions so that ‘noxious’ early succession ‘weeds’ stepped to the sidelines and were outpaced by native grasses and wildflowers that are perennial and/or reseed every year for a nearly zero-maintenance meadow that draws wildlife and is a joy to behold.