A Big Chance to Better Creek Habitat in Lafayette

 

For the past month, Friends of Coal Creek has been working with the Butterfly Pavilion and The Peaks at Old Laramie Trail, a senior-living center in Lafayette, to plan the installation of a pollinator garden at The Peaks and restore prairie to about 3 acres on the site. Today, I am thrilled to announce that we have received permission and funding. Let’s get to work!

Volunteer to install a pollinator garden at The Peaks at Old Laramie Trail on Saturday, June 18 from 8a-1p.

This is Friends of Coal Creek’s largest and most ambitious project to date and a chance to make a significant improvement to habitat along the creek. We’re starting with the installation of a pollinator garden as the cornerstone of the ecosystem.

The Peaks at Old Laramie Trail sites on a 7-acre site directly adjacent to the Coal Creek Trail. Currently, about half the site is developed while the other half, which contains an old mine head, has sat dormant. That’s 3.5 acres of potential wildlife habitat that currently houses a variety of invasive weed species, a healthy prairie dog colony, and some scattered cottontails.

Now imagine it thrumming with birds and bugs and small mammals, restoring beauty and balance and acting as a very visible test garden for what lands adjacent to the creek can be like. Shortgrass prairie used to roll out from the mountains like a carpet, but it’s now so rare that few of us have actually seen much of it in all it’s low-key beauty.

Prairie restoration in urban areas is a patchwork enterprise. Every patch matters and this one, by virtue of its size, is key. From here, we can plan more restoration work to form connections between the riparian zone and the adjacent lands. We are already in early talks with other area landowners to join the effort. Who knows, maybe this becomes the beginning of a Coal Creek pollinator district that runs from Golden to Erie.

That’s a big journey, but every journey begins with a single step and this is a big one. We are so thankful to The Peaks at Old Laramie Trail for participation and to our partners at the Butterfly Pavilion for the technical expertise and funding. Teamwork does the green work!