About us and what we do
OUR STORY
This all started a few months ago in the fall of 2022. Building the Lake Powell Pipeline had been temporarily stopped, a critical drought has brought national attention to Utah's water uses and policy, and a legal water rights battle with surrounding states had amplified my interest in conserving water. Instead of using water to green up my lawn, I wanted to use it for drinking, cooking, washing clothes, and taking showers.
So I decided to change my third of an acre yard, filed with a lush, green Kentucky bluegrass lawn, to a xeriscape landscaping style using the beautiful native desert plants behind my house that were being bulldozed to the ground in order to level ground for a new housing development. I asked all around the local community for information on how and what I needed to do in order to acquire these plants for transplantation and what transplanting techniques I needed to use, and to my surprise, there was very minimal, if any, information about doing this.
This led to taking a trial and error approach in saving the few plants left behind my house in Hurricane Utah. I talked with a few of the excavation and building crew members and they agreed to use their excavator to dig up three creosote bushes and a cactus and drop them over the fence into my yard.
I spent a week planting them and since then, I've successfully got two of the four plants living in my yard.
I wanted connection with my community in how to make this xeriscape change with native plantlife accessible to anyone interested in doing what I did, and the birth of the local native plant rescue as a water-conservation effort was born.
The idea of the Native Plant Rescue of Southern Utah took off so quickly, I've barely been able to keep up since. The reception for this idea is overwhelmingly positive and citizens of our communities want to participate. I have been connecting with community members who also have their own stories of successful native plant transplants.
I'm currently, working together with those community members who have both successful, and some not-so-successful, plant transplant or preservation strategies, and am compiling data to help create a working model for how to implement this strategy region-wide.
Stay tuned for updates and thank you for taking the time to read about us!
Volunteers
Our plant rescue operations are comprised solely by volunteers overseen by NPRSU's operating director.
Our small volunteer team is ever-growing, currently a mix of BLM employees, local plant nursery employees, plant enthusiasts, university students, and local community members from all walks of life and we are always looking to add more.
Our volunteers typically participate in 1-3 hour sessions of native plant removal, native plant restoration, or native plant seed collection.
Volunteer projects are developing as we grow! If you're interested, contact us!
WATER PARTNERSHIPS IN THE DESERT
We are working with the following organizations towards developing and establishing collaborative partnerships in order to further water conservation efforts, practice sustainable development, and focus on climate-sensitive landscaping options as long-term, practical, local solutions to climate change, rapid population growth, and limited natural resources:
- State of Utah - Water Division
- USDA
- Washington County Water Conservancy District (WCWCD)
- Kane County Water Conservancy District
- BLM, (including the St George Field Office)
- Southern Utah Home Builders Association
- Local home developers
- Local plant nurseries
- Regional 501(c)3 (non-profit) conservation organizations
- Local academic institutions
- Local community members
Our primary goal is to support and advocate for the preservation of Southern Utah native plants prior to land development, rescue native plants from areas of imminent habitat destruction, and then re-home rescued plants into private and public spaces in order to support our local plant and animal biodiversity, preserve the natural desert's topographical beauty, rebuild eco-friendly urban desert forests, create appealing landscaping alternatives, minimize water use, and decrease pollution through re-establishing desert forests.
"If we don't adopt new water conservation measures we will run out of water in the next five to ten years." Zach Renstrom, General Manager - WCWCD
FOCUSING ON WATER CONSERVING LANDSCAPES
Offering educational and informative practical application guidelines about native plant preservation used as a landscaping alternative for turf and rock gravel while supporting local wildlife and conserving water. Be a part of the native plant based eco-movement utilizing attractive native desert plant landscaping as a water conservation measure while preserving wildlife habitats.
We believe our local communities have a privileged access with water rights ownership and the corresponding responsibility to sustainably provide usable water to our current families, growing community, and future generations.
Our goal is to build and establish a business model for native plant habitat preservation as a viable water-conservation option to all areas of our community and hope this model will be implemented region-wide.
We strongly believe that if people in our community are given landscaping options using native plants as an alternative to grass turf, gravel, or artificial turf in order to help conserve water and rebuild native animal habitats, our citizens will utilize these options. We have been founded to help establish and make this water-conserving measure an accessible alternative.
"Eliminating just one watering can save about 3,000 gallons for the average quarter-acre Utah yard with 0.17 acres of green space" - Utah Water Division
"You can have a 70% savings on water use with xeriscape" - Zach Renstrom, General Manager - WCWCD
"The water used on one residential grass turf lawn can support culinary water used in three homes." Doug Bennet, Conservation Manager - WCWCD