Native Plants Are Our Friends

If you showed a room of Californians a picture of a California poppy, many of them easily identify our state flower. But what about other natives? Who might recognize a picture of a lupine, monkeyflower, or California fuchsia? How many of us can identify a toyon, manzanita, or coffeeberry?

I wasn’t very familiar with native plants until I studied Environmental Science at UCLA. By volunteering at Sage Hill Preserve and the UCLA Botanical Garden, I learned how native species have evolved with our state. Each species has a unique history of ecological importance. I learned about the deep reciprocal relationships Native people have with native species, and how they encourage them to flourish and provide sustenance for the rest of the living world. 

A cart of California native plants for sale, arranged by Faith.

It’s one thing to enjoy native species out on a hike, but what about every day right in your front yard? Native plants are not only uniquely beautiful, but they can provide water conservation, fire safety, and native habitat uses to otherwise underutilized yards. Native plant horticulture is a rapidly growing field. However, to the uninitiated, native plants can be uncharted territory when compared to popular ornamental plants. Oftentimes it’s hard to find naive plants available for sale, especially ones that are local to your area and free from harmful pesticides. 

Through my GrizzlyCorps service at the Sonoma Ecology Center, my central goal is to make native plant landscaping more accessible to people who may not be aware of the beauty and benefits they can bring to their yards.

Faith at the nursery with bestsellers yerba buena (Clinopodium douglasii) and white sage (Salvia apiana).

Half of my service is spent at the Sonoma Native Plant Nursery at Sonoma Garden Park. It’s a community resource run by Sonoma Ecology Center that offers weekly plant sales to the public and helps provide plants to our Restoration team. All of the plants are locally sourced, either out in the wild by our Nursery Manager or from other local nurseries. We are one of the only native nurseries in the area, so we people come from all over the North Bay searching for native plants. 

My favorite part of working at the nursery is talking to people about their relationships with native plants and helping them to build native biodiversity where they live. It’s a uniquely wonderful feeling when a seed you planted becomes a thriving plant that gets taken home to join someone’s garden. You don’t need an entire native pollinator garden to make an impact; a single native plant added to the landscape already makes a world of difference! I even gifted my parents some California goldenrod and yarrow to grow at my childhood home in LA.

An early-blooming Western Columbine (Aquilegia formosa).

I am also running the Climate Resilient Neighborhoods program in the Sonoma Springs, an unincorporated area of Sonoma Valley. It includes the neighborhoods of El Verano, Agua Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs, and Fetters Hot Springs, whose residents are largely Latino and low-income. The area is densely populated and experiences severe urban heat in the summer.

The Climate Resilient Neighborhoods program connects interested Springs residents with grant money and local landscapers who have completed our Fire Resilient Landscaping course at Santa Rosa Junior College. This course is a collaboration between Sonoma Ecology Center and La Luz, a local Latino nonprofit, that teaches local contractors about defensible space and native plant landscaping. 

This program not only provides work for these contractors and free landscaping for residents, but it also increases the climate resilience of the Springs as it continues to suffer from climate impacts. We have just completed the first round of site visits, and ongoing projects include runoff prevention, sheet mulching, native plant installation, and tree pruning for defensible space. These improvements contribute to the ability of the area to respond to climate events, and the goal is to reach 40 households this year. 

Faith trying to photosynthesize with mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana).

Connecting the people of Sonoma Valley with native plants has not only taught me about the plants, but about the local community. I’ve heard so many good stories, from lectures about people’s favorite native sages to early morning interactions with the birds in their coffeeberry bush. I love learning from those around me, whether it’s their first native plant or they have a native garden that’s older than I am. I’m incredibly grateful that my service year with GrizzlyCorps can help me build meaningful relationships with the people and land around me.