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Greetings!
Here is your monthly update for those participating in the Time to Restore project in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. If you know others who may be interested in this newsletter, please send it their way! If you were forwarded this message, you can sign up to get on our list here.
| | | Upcoming virtual trainings | | |
Join us for a virtual training Wednesday, March 4 at 5:30pm MT / 6:30pm CT. This March call will provide a brief overview of the project, an opportunity for Q&A with project leaders, and a chance to meet fellow Time to Restore participants!
During the March training we'll also provide an update on the new Nature's Notebook app! We'll share some exciting new features and fixes for common issues that users have with the current app.
We've added training dates through May. Our training call in April will provide another full 1.5 hour training on how to participate in the project. The May call will be our final Time to Restore monthly call and will provide a summary of data collected so far and opportunities for continued participation in data collection.
| | Plant of the Month: Eastern purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea | | |
Photo: Bruce Leander, via Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center
Each month, we feature one of the plants on the Time to Restore list. Eastern purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, is one of our regional priority species. You may know this species by the name of its genus, as its flowers are used to make an echinacea tea as well as extracts and other herbal supplements. Eastern purple coneflower grows 2-4 feet tall with single flowers at the end of stems that have spiky orange/brown centers and purple ray petals that droop toward the ground.
You may want to observe this species as a patch of plants. You can do this on your Observation Deck on the Add or Edit Plant page. If you have more than one plant or patch, consider monitoring 2-3 individuals at the same site to capture the variation between plants.
For the plant pictured below, you would report:
Flowers or flower buds - yes
Open flowers - yes
Fruits - no
Ripe fruits - no
| | Photo above: Bruce Leander, via Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center | | |
Coneflower is another species that has small disc flowers surrounded by large colorful ray petals. Look to the center disc of the inflorescence to know when flowers are open. For this species, flowers generally open starting on the outside edge of the disc and opening toward the center.
In the graphic above, you can see the tightly packed green flower buds that are underneath orange spiky structures. As you can see in the annotated photo of a single disc flower (floret) by Bruce Leander (via Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center), these orange structures are called bracts.
The corolla is the part of the flower that will either be closed (green structures in the graphic above) or open as shown in the annotated photo and in the flowers on the outside edge of the disc in the graphic above. You may see bright yellow pollen which tells you that the flowers are open.
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As for the optional intensity questions, you are answering the question "How many flowers or flower buds are present?" Remember that for this species, you should count the number of inflorescences on the plant, or patch of plants.
In the patch below there are 3 inflorescences (each circled in white). We would report 3-10 flowers or flower buds. Optionally, you could put the actual number of flowers you counted in the comments for your observation.
It's difficult to answer the intensity question for "What percent of flowers are open" based on the photo as it's hard to see how many disc flowers on the heads are open. We know that at least one of the inflorescences is 0% open. If, for example, you determined that the other two inflorescences had about 50% of flowers open, you might estimate that approximately 33% (averaging 50%, 50%, and 0%) of flowers are open, and select the bin 25-49% open flowers.
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Phenology Week
March 16-20 is Phenology Week – a virtual celebration of the seasonal cycles of plants and animals. The purpose of Phenology Week is to celebrate you, our Nature's Notebook observers, Local Phenology Programs, and partners! We have a great week planned with virtual events each day and would love to have you be apart of it!
See what's on the schedule »
Sign up for Phenology Week emails »
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Nature's Notebook Nest
Stay connected with fellow observers and Local Phenology Leaders at the Nature's Notebook Nest! These standing monthly meetings on the first Monday of the month at 12pm PT / 3pm ET are a great chance to ask your questions and get advice from fellow observers. Mark your calendars, next Nest is March 2! If you sign up for reminders we'll send you an email a few days before and then the morning of the call.
Sign up for the Community »
| | | Training options in your state | | |
Participants in all states are invited to join us for monthly training series on the first Wednesday of the month. The next training will be Wednesday, March 4, 2026 @ 6:30 p.m. CT. Register here.
Louisiana
Interested in organizing a training for your group in Louisiana? Reach out to Gina Lloyd to schedule.
New Mexico
Interested in organizing a training for your group in New Mexico? Reach out to Kim Eichhorst to schedule.
Oklahoma
Interested in organizing a training for your group in Oklahoma? Reach out to Jane Breckinridge to schedule.
Texas
The table below shows the Texas counties that are represented by Master Naturalist and NPSOT chapters that have already approved the project. We are now up to 74 counties! Let us know if you are already planning on participating in the project but your county is not represented below!
| | | North Texas Counties | Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Erath, Fannin, Hunt, Kaufman, Montague, Parker, Rockwall, Tarrant, Parker, Wise | | Central Texas Counties | Bell, Caldwell, Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Comanche, Erath, Hamilton, Hays, Lampasas, Llano, Milam, Palo Pinto, Travis | | East Texas Counties | Polk, San Jacinto, Trinity, Tyler | | Southeast Texas Counties | Austin, Brazoria, Brazos, Burleson, Colorado, Fayette, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Lee, Leon, Madison, Montgomery, Nueces, Robertson, Walker, Waller, Washington, Wharton | | Southwest Texas Counties | Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kinney, Medina, Uvalde | | West Texas Counties | Bailey, Borden, Cochran, Cottle, Crosby, Dawson, Dickens, Floyd, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Kent, King, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Motley, Scurry, Stonewall, Terry, Yoakum | | | | | |
Gina Lloyd
Time to Restore Louisiana Coordinator
ginalloyd113@gmail.com
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Kim Eichhorst
Co-Director of the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP)
New Mexico contact for Time to Restore
kimde@unm.edu
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Jane Breckinridge
Director of the Euchee Butterfly Farm and Tribal Alliance for Pollinators
Oklahoma contact for Time to Restore
jane@nativebutterflies.org
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