Rose Houk

For a beautiful, thriving garden, it’s all about the birds and the bees — and the bats and the butterflies too. Nearly all flowers and most crop plants need animals to carry their pollen from one plant to another for fertilization.

It’s the time of year when young birds have hatched and are about to try their wings. But those newborns can be vulnerable to high winds, predators, or injury that force them from the nest before they’re fully prepared.

Santa Fe, New Mexico is a city of arroyos. More than 80 miles of these ephemeral waterways enter the main Santa Fe River that flows through the city. But many of the arroyos are ailing. Years of erosion and general neglect have worsened flooding during storms, leading to a lot of damage. Now, the nonprofit group Santa Fe Watershed Association has launched a recovery program called Adopt-an-Arroyo. It’s patterned after the group’s thriving Adopt the River program, in partnership with the city and county of Santa Fe.

Pablita Velarde is hardly a household name. But in the world of Southwest art, she is considered one of the greatest female painters of her generation. 

Biocrust is a vital, but fragile material that covers a good portion of the soil surface on the Colorado Plateau. This “living skin” is a complex concoction of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, moss and lichen.