At Sunshine Preserve, the yellow and purple tufts of Pennisetum setaceum (fountain grass) no longer dominate the landscape. For decades, this fast-spreading invasive grass outpaced natives and hoarded water and soil nutrients, while providing minimal benefit to wildlife. When fountain grass dries out in the summer it becomes highly flammable, posing annual fire risk.
Fountain grass at Sunshine Preserve in 2023, video by Christopher Smee
One morning in February 2024, volunteers at Sunshine Preserve began the painstaking task of removing fountain grass from a steep hillside. What started as a single day of effort grew into months of sustained stewardship: pulling roots, carefully disposing clumps of seeding grass, managing regrowth, and slowly reclaiming precious habitat.
It is a continuous battle because of the remaining seed bank, but our intrepid Friends are gaining the upper hand.
They also planted 200 individual native plants: white and black sage, California sagebrush, blue elderberry, toyon, sugar bush, coyote brush, chaparral yucca, laurel sumac, lemonade berry, bush sunflower, and rubber rabbitbrush. With each passing season, the Friends plant and nurture more native species to enhance biodiversity.
The newly-named Sage Hill is thriving; a once barren monoculture now supports a diverse living landscape. Insects and pollinators are enjoying the new habitat, and as the native plants take over they enrich the soil, prevent erosion, and provide homes and cover for birds and animals. This targeted restoration effort transformed a fire-prone hillside into a mosaic of biodiversity, showing with care and commitment an ecological loss can evolve into long-term resilience.
Scroll down to see photos of Sunshine’s diversity of insects, as captured by Erin Doyle (aka @bugsofburbank), and mammals photographed by AFC trail cams!
The restoration of our lands is only possible when we all choose to invest in it.
Please make a donation today to support this work. Your gift helps us care for the lands we’ve already protected, and makes it possible to conserve more in years ahead.