As a matter of fact, an ordinary desert supports a much greater variety of plants than does either a forest or a prairie.

-Ellsworth Huntington

native plant gardens / migratory pollinators

The continued viability of the Sonoran Desert depends, in part, on the success of its native pollinators - bees, birds, bats, beetles and butterflies-which in turn depend upon easy access to the nourishment provided by native flowering plants.

Many nectar sources have been lost to recent area-wide drought. Our pollinator garden program seeks to create gardens of native plants that act as nectar corridors connecting the natural habitats protected in the Pinacate, Organ Pipe, Cabeza Prieta, and the Sonoran Desert National Monument.

ISDA volunteers have created community, school, and residential gardens in Gila Bend and Ajo, Arizona. In Ajo, ISDA created a large pollinator garden by landscaping the Curley School campus only with native plants.

In 2004, ISDA co-published Pollinators of the Sonoran Desert, a colorful 162-page, bilingual field guide to the animal species that pollinate our region.