Please Visit and Let Our Gardens Inspire Yours [Opinion]

Let Our Sacred Grounds Gardens Inspire Yours RANCHO MIRAGE — In just a short time, the Sacred Grounds gardens and desert habitats were dedicated in Rancho Mirage, we are thrilled to report they are flourishing, providing a space for desert wildlife and pollinators.

Now we hope that these gardens will inspire you and other visitors to create desert-friendly garden habitats. We hope our enthusiasm for the desert world will encourage you and others to learn more about our native species, learn to love our desert, and want to protect it.

You can visit the gardens on the campus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Desert anytime. In addition, the gardens will be featured as the site of the next Desert Community Garden Day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22.  Free and open to the public, the event is sponsored by the Desert Horticultural Society of the Coachella Valley and its partners and will include talks about gardening, sales of native and desert-friendly plants and other vendors.

Our Sacred Grounds project began in 2023 and includes a Desert Canyon Habitat, a Celebration Garden, creosote scrub habitat, blow sand habitat, and a pollinator habitat including the pollinator promenade, the butterfly garden, the hummingbird garden and the bee habitat. We will be adding a Desert Dry Wash Habitat this winter.

All the habitats are dedicated to desert plants that support insects, birds and other wildlife unique to the desert. The National Wildlife Federation has certified the gardens as habitat for wildlife.

The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Desert, 72425 Via Vail, is a sanctuary for diversity, spiritual growth and social justice. You can learn more about our church and about upcoming services and events at uucod.org