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California Native Plants: Bringing California Back to Life · In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners, where we explore the science, stories, and people that help us become better gardeners and better stewards of California's natural environment.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm Bill Brooks, your Master Gardener host for today's show.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: I've journeyed to Santa Barbara, California to visit Channel Islands Restorations Moore Ranch Native Plant Nursery to learn about a subject that is becoming increasingly important to gardeners.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Joining me is Wyatt McLean, the manager of Channel Islands Restorations Native Plant Nursery here.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: We're sitting in the nursery outdoors, so you may hear some background noises and things, but that's because we're in a beautiful spot outside today.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to take our discussion one step further.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about what happens before a native plant ever gets planted in the ground, as well as how organizations such as Channel Islands Restoration turn tiny seeds into plants that can restore entire ecosystems.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Wyatt.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: What does Channel Islands Restoration do?
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Hello, uh, thank you for having me.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Um Channel Islands Restoration is a 501c3 nonprofit and uh contractor, and we restore native habitat in California's Channel Islands and the adjacent mainland ecosystems through invasive plant management, native plant propagation, and uh installation of native plants.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Um we maintain this nursery uh in a partnership with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden uh to propagate and raise natives from local seed sources that we can provide to our many projects all over California and to the surrounding community as well.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: So, what's your role here at the nursery?
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm the nursery manager, so I basically oversee all nursery operations.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: I manage our team of volunteers and our couple of nursery employees.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: I oversee the propagation and seed collection.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: I work with our partners and clients, uh, make sure we're on track to meet our goals and following best management practices, et cetera, kind of overlooking the whole arch of things in here.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: So let's start with the basics.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: What exactly do we mean when we call a plant a Californian native?
2:15
SPEAKER_01: A California native plant uh is a plant that has evolved naturally in California before uh changes in the landscape brought from um outside uh modern development, agriculture, um, and the introduction of plants from other places in the world from people who aren't necessarily indigenous from here.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: There is an important point uh that a California native quote is not necessarily native to all parts of California.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: California is such a broad uh area with pretty arbitrary boundaries that aren't necessarily around our uh bioregions and our natural uh ecological boundaries.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: So a uh plant that's native to Northern California may not be native to Southern California.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: So it's important to ask the question of where is it native to in California when you say California native?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: What region, what location?
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And that definition applies to no matter where in the world you're listening from today.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Every place has native plants.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And what we're talking about in today's show is also going to apply wherever you live.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's what the important thing is is we get into natives a little bit.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: So when we're choosing native plants, we shouldn't simply look at the label that says California Native.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: We should ask native to where.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And it is looking at that.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh in some cases, in in Orange County, for example, or Santa Barbara County, where we are, a Joshua tree that is native to the upper Mojave Desert may not grow well here.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: It might, but it does need uh time of frost.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: So we have to be careful to what we're talking about.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: So you want to research what are the native plants within your own area.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: So why should gardeners consider planting native plants?
4:10
SPEAKER_01: There are lots of reasons.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, but the base of most of our ecosystems are plants.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And since native plants have evolved in this landscape for thousands of years, they hold up our ecosystems and support the most amount of diversity and the most life.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Native plants provide habitat for food, uh, for insects, birds, reptiles, and other wildlife.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: They provide nectar, pollen, seeds, berries, shelter, and nesting materials.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, and some wildlife have evolved specific relationships with certain plants, meaning the population of that certain species will decline if the plant becomes less prevalent in the landscape.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's uh important to have a diversity of native plants in your garden or to restore native habitat so that we can be providing habitat for the most amount of diversity and the most amount of life.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what keeps our landscape and things so rich and things that you should consider.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: So native gardening isn't simply about putting a California native plant into the garden and forgetting about it.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, though, if you are planting at the right time and choosing the right plant for the right environmental conditions and soil type for your area, it will require very little maintenance and far less maintenance than your average horticultural plant.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: It also depends on what you're hoping to get out of your garden as well, what type of maintenance you want to put into it.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: I work primarily in restoration.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we really plant in the best time of year, which is the fall, with the first big rain or first substantial rain to water those roots in deeply.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: And then we only really water in the first year, maybe the second year, and then we kind of just let the site do what it wants to do after that, and whatever takes over will take over, and whatever doesn't doesn't.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: However, if you're in a if you have a garden in which you don't want your plants to go so dormant, or you want it to be more manicured, or if you want the bloom season to be extended longer, then you may want to do more maintenance.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, you may want to prune the plant during the dormancy season to encourage better growth next year.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: You may want to do some supplemental watering in the spring or in the fall uh to kind of extend the rainy years or to um to uh have a better because that's what you're talking about.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Deadheading and all the things that we can do with any kind of horticultural plant in an ornamental landscape, you can do with native exactly.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And I know things like if you need a privacy hedge, there's certain plants that work extremely well.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Lemonade berry to name one, toyon to name another one.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And those are the things that we need to think about when we're do talking about native plants.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: So now let's talk about something most gardeners probably don't think about very often.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: When Channel Islands restoration is going to restore habitat with native plants, where do those plants come from?
7:21
SPEAKER_01: So all of our plants here are endemic to the Santa Barbara region or to the different projects, restoration projects that we have that we're growing for.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: So they're all collected from seed from local preserves or restoration sites and then grown out into the nursery to be going to those specific regions they're endemic to.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, and when we grow for the general community and do public sales, we're mostly focusing on growing for the Santa Barbara community and getting plants from our local preserves and restoration sites into their gardens.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: I know one of the things that's very important to our director is that when we're doing a restoration site, that we actually use seeds from the area rather than even bringing in something from another county.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the process.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Suppose you find a healthy population of native plants growing in an area that is appropriate for seed collection.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: What happens next?
8:17
SPEAKER_01: First, you want to make sure you have permission to collect.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you don't want to be collecting from private land without permission, obviously, or you don't want to be collecting from our Channel Islands or our national parks without permission.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: So that would be the number one one thing you want to think about before collecting is who owns this land?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: What permissions do I need?
8:36
SPEAKER_01: And then once you do have permission, I uh look at the pop overall population of the plants I want to collect.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I uh will note various things like is there any disease present?
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh are there any signs of stress?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh you want to take note of the size of the population.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Are there only one or two individuals or are there a few dozen or a few hundred?
9:00
SPEAKER_01: If it's healthy and abundant, uh I will make note of the stage of growth the plants are in.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: And if seed is not ready, then I will wait um until it is, and I'll go back frequently to check because once it's too late and the seed is dispersed, then it's too late and the seed is exactly.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: So you really want to keep an eye on the stage that the plant is in, whether it's still flowering, whether seed is developed but not quite ready.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you just want to go back at the right exact time to be able to collect.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: And then you want to make sure you're only collecting exactly what you need and no more than 5% of the population.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure that it looks like you were never there when you were collecting.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And that you've left enough seeds and the natural energy.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Exactly to uh go ahead and and propagate that plant the way nature does it.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: So why is it important to collect from multiple plants?
9:58
SPEAKER_01: You want to maintain genetic diversity uh and avoid over-collecting from one specific plant.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's important to maintain genetic diversity to keep populations of certain plants more resilient to disease or environmental shifts.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's why it's also important to collect only from healthy and abundant populations.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: So here's another fascinating thing about native plant seed.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: You can't necessarily collect them wherever you want to.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Different natives have totally different life cycles and different bloom times, uh, and they develop totally different times in the season.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: The main seed collection season for us is June through October, so that's when we're doing the most amount of seed collection.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Because most are our are blooming or we shall we say finishing blooming.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: But in California, we've got winter bloomers.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes, plant cycle.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: And it'll also depend on the region you're in.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: I find that plants down here in Santa Barbara, the same plant will be ready at a totally different time in OHI, for example.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: That is more inland in a drier, um hotter environment.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, exactly.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna you're gonna need to look at all that.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: So do your research.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Get if you really want to get into this, I recommend getting a couple good native plant books and begin.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: So, what would your average gardener need to do to collect native plant seeds?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: In other words, once we know we're at a piece uh property that we uh can go on if we're not violating any laws, how do you do it?
11:36
SPEAKER_00: How do you collect those seeds?
11:37
SPEAKER_01: First, as you said, you want to make sure you have knowledge of the plant.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Our native plants are so diverse and there's so much variety and uh different things going on between the plants that you want to know what you're collecting, what the seed looks like, what general time that it's ready.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then really all you need are your fingers and a bag.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: I usually use a manila envelope.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Ziplocks don't really work because if there's any moisture at all, then that will get trapped in the Ziploc bag and cause your seed to rot.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: So you want to make sure it's in an aerated environment.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'm just collecting the fruit and then letting them, you know, open and dry later into a sieve that I can sift out.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, other times I'm uh patting the plant to get just the seed to drop into my bag.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: It really depends on the plant.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: There's so much diversity.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And do you put like a thin meshed bag over the bloom and knock the seeds loose that way?
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Nylonish kind of bag where you know there's a thin mesh so the seeds can't escape, but moisture can.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh, usually I just use a manila.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: That's all we use.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: We keep it low-tech, and then we have sieves back in our nursery.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: So we'll bring that seed back and then we'll like kind of clean and process a lot of the chaff out of it after the fact.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Because it's more difficult to do that cleaning in the field.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it kind of depends on the on the species that we're going after.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned propagation, and it's used in a lot of gardening.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: So, what does it mean?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh and how do you do it here at Channel Islands Restoration Native Plant Nursery?
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, propagation is basically just the process of growing new plants from other plants.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: We do them, we propagate in our nursery mostly from seed because we get the most genetic integrity.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to take any plant material, but other species will do sometimes from cuttings or division.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: There are so many different ways that we can propagate natives, and usually we're trying to take advantage of a certain adapted trait.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, for example, some seeds commonly grow, and you just all you need to do is sow it and you give it enough sunlight and water, and they just grow abundantly.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Others need specific treatments because they're adapted to germinate when a fire rolls through the landscape, for example.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes we'll do a heat stratification on those.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Other times they need a cold and wet winter.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: So we'll do a cold stratification, etc.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: So some plants have adapted for different various uh environmental conditions to grow.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: For example, like some riparian species have adapted really well to grow from cuttings that end up getting dispersed through a creek during a big flood or some other disturbance event and grow that way.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: So then we'll grow those plants through cuttings, like yeah, when the branches would break off during a flood.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: So you know that, and and uh you try the propagation that way.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: A lot of gardeners propagate from cuttings.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: So that I could see that have been done in so you mentioned this word stratification, and stratification it can either it's either heat or cold, if I'm correct.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Talk about, I know more plants need that cold stratification.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Talk about how you go about cold stratifying, say, like for a Tory pine seed, uh, in an environment that doesn't get that cold.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: When I'm cold stratifying, it doesn't freeze here in Santa Barbara, so I'm never putting my seed in the freezer.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: I all I get is a Ziploc bag, some vermiculite, which you can get from any Ace Hardware or Garden Supply store.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: And then I just put a little bit of moist but not too wet vermiculate, mix the seed I want to stratify into that vermiculite, make sure it's again not too wet but not too dry as well, and just stick that in the fridge.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, different seeds require different stratification timelines, but a good rule of thumb is 90 days.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: So you're basically minimicking an entire cold, wet winter, and that's usually all you need.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Some may need a little bit longer, some may only need 30 days or 15 days, etc.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And I've heard I've heard the produce drawer is like a good spot to keep it because it doesn't get too cold in there.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just we use our little mini fridge here, and that works great so that it just kind of stays a nice, cool, dark.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Do you do any heat stratification?
16:07
SPEAKER_01: We do, yeah, for a lot of seeds.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: And for that, we uh boil water to not quite boiling, about 180 degrees, and I use a little meat thermometer to uh check the temperature of the water as I'm heating it up over a stove, and then I have that seed in a jar that I want to do a heat stratification to.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: I just pour the hot water over the seed, let it soak for usually about 24 hours, and then sow the seed immediately after.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's a way to do it if you need to heat stratify something.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: So, what does your day look like here at the nursery?
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, it really depends on the season.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: Throughout the year, we're doing a lot of transplanting, which is just potting pots, uh potting plants up from small pots to bigger pots, or doing bare root division, which is just moving them out of our community flats into a pot on their own.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: In the winter and spring, usually is our primary propagation season.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: So we do a lot of seed processing and sowing then.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, then as plants grow into the late spring and summer, we are potting them up and dividing them until we have what we need for whatever project that we're trying to grow for, or our goal numbers for a public sale.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: And in the summertime, the watering needs are very high.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And as the pots plants get bigger and more established, they get more thirsty and need more water.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: And we don't have any automatic irrigation in our nursery.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: So we spend many hours in the summertime watering.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: And then, yeah, as the after everything gets planted, then we kind of reorganize the nursery and get ready to do our next wave of propagation.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: So when you see a native plant being installed at a restoration site, you're really seeing the final step in a much longer process that you do here.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm trusting, is it about a gallon size of what you like to do when Channel Islands Restoration does a restoration?
18:02
SPEAKER_01: It really depends.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh, people really like gallon-sized pots because you can put them in the ground and they look established kind of right off the bat.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it really doesn't matter.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: You can plant quite young with natives.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And I would often say that planting young is better.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: So we really like to plant if we're doing a site that doesn't necessarily have close truck access.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: We'll plant often in plug sizes, so two by five inch uh pots.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: The deeper the pot, the better, because when we're growing them, they'll they'll take up less space.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We can take a bunch out, but they have nice deep, robust root systems.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh, people you can plant in four by four pots.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Planting young is okay, but a lot of the times if we want to get it established quickly and have it look pretty good right off the bat, if it's a very public site, then we'll plant in gallons.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: So people can see that, oh, look at this, some progress is exactly.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it could when you plant young, it doesn't really look like much happened for a couple of months.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: So here's a fun fact: California has an incredible variety of ecosystems.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Within a relatively short distance, you can encounter beaches and coastal dunes, wetlands, oak woodlands, a number of types of chaparral, grasslands, deserts, mountain forests, and island ecosystems on our Channel Islands.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And that means California doesn't have one single plant environment.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Our native plants are adapted to very different combinations of temperature, rainfall, soil, elevation, fog, wind, fire, and other environmental conditions.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: That's why local proverance can be so important in restoration.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: So let's explore the idea of local seed.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Why not just take a native plant from somewhere else in California and plant it here?
19:52
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it can be appropriate, and I don't want to put any shame on having cultivars in your garden or some non-local plant that you may really love or looks really beautiful.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Even if it's not totally local, it can still play a role in the ecology of your garden.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: So no shame on that, but it is really important to plant local species when you can.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: It's important to consider.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And in our restoration projects, we try to plant use plant material that is adapted to the particular region or ecosystem that we're trying to restore.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: Plants from different populations can have genetic differences that reflect their local environments.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: And these differences can sometimes even be presented in like neighboring canyons.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Like California fuchsia, for example, I'll see totally different looking plants from one canyon to the other.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they have lighter leaves, sometimes they're a little darker and broader, or they'll bloom at slightly different times.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: So when we can, we try to use the most local uh genetics possible.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, plants growing on the island, for example, have evolved for different conditions than plants growing on the mainland, and plants from Northern California, even if the same species are adapted to different climate patterns than Southern California, for example.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: So this can be important for many reasons, such as non-local plants can often have different bloom times than our local populations, which can affect local pollinator populations, and they may be less adapted to your specific climate, conditions in your soil area.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And another important note is if you live in a wildland urban interface, your plants in your garden may hybridize with local wild populations, which can create some pot problems that we don't even really fully understand the implications of yet.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's something to definitely consider and be careful of when you're planting your garden.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: And we can see all of the escaped uh nursery plants.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh pompous grass, to name one, for example.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Is all over our canyons.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And that was uh, I don't even think that's being sold in nurses anymore, luckily, because it's unfortunately really gotten into our natural environment.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: So in restoration ecology, we're not just asking, is this species native?
22:14
SPEAKER_00: We're also asking, is this the right genetic material for this location?
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: We we want to preserve the genetic integrity of the site to the best of our ability.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of thinking I can see goes into this.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Is it possible for the gardener to collect native seed?
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And what would the gardener need to know?
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And we touched on this a little bit, but any anything else that we can talk about collecting native seed?
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's again, we we went over a lot of it, but first you want to identify the right area and ask yourself certain questions like, is this local to me, or does it have similar site conditions to my garden?
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, what is the climate in this area, and how does it vary to the climate to where I live, uh, etc.?
23:06
SPEAKER_01: That's all really important when you're considering what would do best in your garden.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: So collect local.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And also, again, you've got to know the property on which you're collecting and uh bring those manila envelopes with you and uh know that know the right type of season.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: So, what about the rules and regulation for land that native species lives on?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about the rules we might encounter.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, like I said before, you really want to make sure you have permission.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's always best to collect on private land that you have permission to collect on, whether it be your own garden or a friend's garden or you know, someone you know.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you are collecting in in public lands, make sure to try to ask whatever person is representing that land.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Um and as I said before, you want to do it ethically once you do have permission.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh you don't want to take more than you can, and you don't want to take more than five to ten percent of that population.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: So, when's the best time of year to begin propagating natives from seed?
24:15
SPEAKER_01: It totally depends on the plant.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Um and in certain nurseries and certain locations, you can get away with growing plants a little bit outside of their regular season that they would propagate.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: For here, for example, in Galita, where we are quite literally a stone's throw away from the ocean, we have a very mild environment and we can get away with propagating things in the summertime.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: But usually spring late winter through the spring is the best time to get started on propagating native plants.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: So, what's your favorite seed-starting potting mix soil for natives?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: What do you like to propagate in?
24:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I love using burger mix or BM2.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: It's I don't know how available it is to your average person, um, but it's basically a mix of vermiculite, peat moss, and perlite, and you can kind of try to make something similar at home if you're and that's pretty similar to what most gardeners propagate their vegetable seeds in.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: That's the exact same thing.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And I know most gardeners that propagate mix their own.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: And you can get peat and vermiculite and perlite easily at any garden center to make your own potting soil.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: And if you look it up online, I'm sure you could find it.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: It really is a great product.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: It is quite expensive though, so we only use it for our seed germination, and we sow our seed into that, and then we move them up into a hardier potting soil mix after that.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: And and talk about when you up pot uh what what's the soil mix for that usually?
25:51
SPEAKER_01: So we have uh two different blends that we use uh after we do the seed germination.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Our first blend is kind of uh it's an equal mix of coco-quir, which we used to use the BM, but it got very expensive.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: So we switched to Coco Coir.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a little more sustainable because it doesn't use peat moss and it's just uh a byproduct of coconut processing, and that is quite cheap.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: So we use an equal part coco-quir, perlite, and our potting soil mix, which we get from a local company called Agriman.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a really hardy potting soil.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: So you can use any commercial potting mix on the uh on the market.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So are there natives?
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe you could name a few that propagate easily from a cutting.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: We will propagate often from cuttings, elderberry, willow, mule fat, um, blackberry, a lot of riparian species.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: We also have had a project recently at Point Magoo Naval Base where there's a lot of dune and marsh plants.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: And those are often getting inundated by storm surge and uh different weather events that give them that same adaptation to grow from little fragments that end up on beaches and various parts of the marsh.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: So anywhere that really has that adaptation, you can grow those plants from cuttings.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: You can almost grow anything from cuttings, but it gets more difficult as you get to some of those more obscure species or some of those more upland species.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, but honeysuckle is really easy to propagate from cuttings.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: There are certain species that we don't really get good seed from, like uh chaparral mallow, for example.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: There's always weevils in the seeds, so we propagate those from cuttings and those come up really easily.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: So feel free to experiment.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: It's uh you kind of figure it out as you go.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: You gotta learn how to kill a few things before you learn how to grow them.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, and that's I think that's the funnest thing about gardening is that experimentation.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: So, what about watering your seeds?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how do you keep them watered?
28:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh we water overhead with a hose and we use kind of a light.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Put it on the misting setting.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: And then newly planted seeds, do you do you ever cover them with like a plastic lid during the germination process and then remove it?
28:18
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of people do.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: We don't because we kind of think that the natives are adapted for the natural climate, and so we try to let them go through the the natural shifts in the environment.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: So we don't we don't do anything.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: We just put them in the flats, water them, make sure they're not too moist but not too dry ever.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: And then once you pot them up and they get established, then we kind of wean them off the watering a little bit and make sure that they get exposed to various stressors.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, we call that a lot of times you've heard us talk about hardening off our plants.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: So we want to harden them off before we put them in the ground, especially when we're taking them to a restoration site, or if you're planting them on your own property.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: So back to the work you do here at the plant nursery.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: So once a plant is large enough, now so when you propagate the seeds, you're doing it in a nursery flat, and then you're upplanting to a smaller pot, and then maybe upplanting to a gallon pot.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I fully finished my thought before.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: We will move them up from our community flats, we call them, which is essentially a 17 by 17 inch flat that we fill up with our germination mix and we just sow our seed on top of that.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: Once they're established in that, we move them up into a two inch by five inch plug.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: So they're pretty, they can put out pretty deep roots, but still are in a small enough pot.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: And we'll usually use our coconut coir, uh, perlite and potting soil mix.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: And then after they're established in those first pots, then we move them up again into either usually it's a three and a half by six inch pot or a gallon-sized pot.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: And in that case, we'll use the straight potting soil mix.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: So it's more dense, so it mimics the uh the soil.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: So you're kind of easing them up into the into their what's more similar to the native soil that you're planting them into.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: So that makes sense.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: The home gardener does this all the time as they learn about the many climate zones uh that they have to deal with soil and sunlight in their own gardens.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk more about gardening with natives in Southern California.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: When is the best time of year to plant?
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Best time of year is always, almost always the fall and winter.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: I usually try to time it with the first solid rain of the season, uh, the first rain that will actually saturate deeply into the soil.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: And if you can't quite do that, then planting in you know the early late fall when the environment starts to cool down is the best.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: And just make sure you're watering very deeply until you get those first rains.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: Can also get away with planting in the spring sometimes, though I don't always recommend it.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: This works better for the herbaceous plants or the plants that like the summer more, but you've got to be careful about watering and making sure they they get enough water to get established.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: I I kind of in Orange County I like to tell people Halloween to roughly Easter, unless we have a late Easter than before that.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of my uh my thing that I tell people.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: You want the roots to get established and happy before our summer heat comes.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: And I want to remind our audience outside of California that local cooperative extension offices in their area has information on planting native plants to that specific area.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: In addition, there are numerous worldwide native plant organizations that have information on native plants of the specific region in which you live.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Here in Southern California, we have a Mediterranean climate.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: So today's information works for a lot of Europe.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the best planting tips for actually putting a native plant in the ground?
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, again, like we just said, timing is very important.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: The earlier in the rainy season you can do it, the more established they will become.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: And you want to make sure that you aren't watering too often.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: Usually in the winter time, I'll water about once a month if we don't get enough rain.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure the roots dry out enough.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Tips with just the planting itself, you want to make sure that in California specifically, we you know get dry summers and we get erratic rain.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: So I like to create a little bit of a well around the plant so that it can gather water and that water can saturate deeply into the roots, especially if you have to do any hand watering that can keep all the water congregated in the root zone.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: Drip irrigation is helpful for this reason.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure the plant is nice and securely put in the ground without any air pockets, so that when you water, it doesn't a bunch of soil doesn't sink down and you don't have any exposed roots because that can really shock it.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Another tip is to not let any organic material into your planting hole because that can rot and cause some issues with your planting as well.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, not to plant too high and not to plant too low, just in that perfect spot in between.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so to clarify, we want to make sure that the hole is as deep as the root ball that I'm going to dig.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: And I want to dig it about twice as wide as my container.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to throw my native soil away and replace it with potting soil, because what happens is those roots say, I'm not going outside of this happy environment.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: And then you kind of can stunt your plant growth because they won't go into the native soil that way.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: So the native soil is important.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people that are homeowners might find that their soil isn't particularly hard.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is because when the builders built the property, they compacted the soil.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: So you might have to do some mulching and some amending to bring your native soil up to a more loose fitting form so that you can plant your plants.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna water them.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: I personally like to put water in the hole.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're doing a native plant restoration, you may not have that access, but you do want that deep watering and that water hole, and then we want to mulch around the outside.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: But there's an important thing about mulch, and that is we want to keep it four to six inches away from a stem because that can cause the stem to rot.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a favorite mulch or any mulch?
34:54
SPEAKER_01: Oof with mulch, it's kind of we get what we get.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: I would be wary of certain companies or your maybe your local dump does free mulch from their green waste.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: Be wary of plastic.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Plastic ends up in in mulch all over.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And so you may have to pick out old tree ties and irrigation tube.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: We usually uh talk to our local tree trimmers and we get free mulch dropped off from them, and that's a really great resource.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Just make sure you're asking questions about what tree you're getting it from and whether or not that tree had died of a disease or anything like that.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: And in California specifically, I would shy away from eucalyptus mulch, although I've been told that if it sits in the mulch pile for about a year, then the leopathy kind of goes away.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what our research at UCANR is saying is that that can actually be used if it's composted correctly.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's interesting.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you're uh talking about, referring to with the tree trimmers, is called the chip drop.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And they basically come, you have to have a lot of space because they will drop quite a load, and that's what they've run through the chipper.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh some of it is quite fresh, so it it may need to do a little decomposition.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that kind of material I'm looking here at the paths around all the garden benches and things, and that's what you use.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a material is from a chip drop.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: And that is uh, you know, prevents you from walking on the dust, and it makes it possible so that when it's raining or after a rain, you can walk around in here and not not waddle and mud.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: So that would uh that would also work.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you have what do you I didn't ask you this?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: What are your favorite natives?
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, can you garden?
36:42
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a couple, I uh live on a sailboat actually, so this is my outlet for gardening.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: It's that's such a hard question.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple plants I really love, and it depends on the time of year.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: I have an affinity to our coastal ecosystems, so I really love our dune and marsh plants.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say sea cliff buckwheat is probably one of my very favorite plants, uh, especially in the dunes.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: It can look a bit funky sometimes, but it really holds things down, and I really appreciate that about the plant.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, always love our California fuchsia and the hummingbird sage and those beautiful fragrant plants.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, one of my favorites lately has been Mirabolis Lavis or uh wishbone bush.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: That one's a really lovely one that I think should be in more gardens.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little about what it looks like.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's got a really beautiful pink flower.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: It blooms early in the spring.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get too big, it's kind of a bit of a like a smaller, about one to three foot high kind of ground sprawling plant.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: And it tends to go dormant in the summer, but in the spring sends out these really beautiful flowers.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: And I believe they're a host plant of the Sphinx moth.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to attract more sphinx moths in your region, then having Mirabolis is great.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: And then I would suggest maybe planting a datura right next to it.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: So you have the pollination source right there.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the common name for Datura?
38:09
SPEAKER_01: I've always called it Datura.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: I know it's got all sorts of common.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh it is has this beautiful giant white flower that's kind of the shape of a trumpet away.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, blooms at night.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, you often catch the blooms early in the morning.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: It's a bit of a ground sprawling plant.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: I would be careful of it if you have a dog that's chews on plants.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, it is toxic to humans and animals.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: So you want to be careful with it, but it it is a really beautiful plant.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: It loves disturbed soils.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, it needs very little water and it blooms really late in the summer and early fall.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: About right now is actually when it's in full bloom.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: So it's a really great plant if you don't have a lot of fall bloomers in your garden.
38:57
SPEAKER_01: That's a great one to add.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: The other thing we didn't talk about with plants is some plants are deciduous, meaning that they lose their leaves and they go dormant during certain types of the year.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, on the East Coast, a lot of your maple trees and broadleaf trees lose their leaves during the cold season.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: But in California, a lot of our plants are summer deciduous, which means that they get almost brown and dead looking in the summer.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: Is fuchsia one of those drought deciduous plants?
39:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, but it's very late in the season you start to see it dry back.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: So it will bloom about right now, is kind of the end of its bloom period.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: We're sorry, we're talking in what is it's mid-October.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: It's mid-October.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: So around it will bloom through like late summer through early mid-fall, and then kind of goes dormant through the early, late fall, early winter, and then starts popping back up.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: The rains and the cool weather wake it up.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: So you need to know if your plant's drought deciduous.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's also important to note that if you have a drought deciduous plant, one that is going to go brown or lose leaves in the summer months, you want to cut back on the water because you will kill it.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's the easiest way to kill a native plant in California is overwatering.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: Some plants can handle a little bit of summer watering, especially in that first year.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: We like to water in the summer.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: What I always tell people is you can't water too much when you water, but you can water too often.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, the the roots of our natives really like to dry out.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're keeping the soil wet, then they're going to die, especially in the summertime.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: And then certain species will die with any summer water.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: So you have to be careful of what you're working with and do that experimentation we're talking about.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Know that.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: And they like less frequent but deep watering.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned that you like to put that little planting bowl around the plants to catch that water.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: So the water will go deep.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: So, what about people who want to grow California native wildflowers from seed or wildflowers wherever they live in the world?
41:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, I would sow them before the first big rain.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, usually you want to scrape up your soil a little bit.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'll identify an area, I'll remove any invasive annual weeds from that area because those might outcompete your native wildflowers.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: And so you want to be working kind of from a bare soil environment and then get a rake or a McLeod or something and kind of scarf e up the soil a little bit and then sow your seed and kind of pat it down.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: I do a little dance on it and then wait for the rain.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: And it is very important, especially in California where we have a lot of invasive uh non-native annual weeds, to do periodic weeding of the wildflower plot just to make sure that they don't get out competed and shaded out by those quick growing annuals.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: So, with my wildflowers, when I'm sowing the seeds, once I've prepared the soil, I'm putting them right on top.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not burying them.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's kind of an important step.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you said to get the seed to make contact with the soil, exactly, you're going to you're going to walk on it.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: And I know online, wherever in the world you live, you can find great sources for native seeds, not only for California wildflowers, but for whatever the wildflowers are in your region.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: So that's an important thing, and that's how you put them out and when you put them out.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: Depending upon where you live in the world, you may be doing this more towards the spring when the soil thaws out and other native plants and wildflowers are adapted to germinate more towards the spring and summer, where a lot of our wildflowers they'll be blooming late winter, early spring, and they'll start to die out when the heat of our summer comes.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: So I understand that people can volunteer with Channel Islands Restoration both here at the nursery or actually doing native plant restoration.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: We have all sorts of volunteer events, and it seems like every year we are taking on more and more.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: So there's lots of opportunities.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: If anyone's interested, they can go to our website and sign to our volunteer email list, and then you'll receive all the different uh cool opportunities that we have.
43:45
SPEAKER_01: We have events out at the Channel Islands, Catalina Island, and Santa Cruz Island.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: We have events on our local preserves here in Santa Barbara, in the nursery here.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about native plant propagation, and we also have events in Ventura.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: County and uh sometimes in LA County if we have a project out there.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: So, how often do you bring volunteers here in the nursery?
44:10
SPEAKER_01: We have a group of about right now, it's about 20 people who come in pretty good pretty regularly.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: We call them our core nursery volunteer team, and they're coming in on a basically a weekly basis.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: We have somebody here almost every day of the week volunteering, um, except for usually Tuesdays and Thursdays are our slow days.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: They help us with cleaning pots, watering plants, potting up plants, and we're also expanding into the back half of our nursery.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: So we have some folks helping with that as well.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as I'm building tables soon.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I see a lot of space back there.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of room to expand.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we also do seed collecting with volunteers as well.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: So if you're interested in seed collecting, you can come out with us on a weekly basis during the seed collection season and collect all sorts of native seeds.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: So I want to give the website because I think that's where anybody that especially lives within the Ventura County, Santa Barbara County area.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: So it is CIRWeb.org.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to remember CIR for Channel Islands Restoration, then the word web and then the.org.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: And that makes it easy for you to find out and figure out if you want to volunteer.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: And even if you live in other areas of Southern California, you can take trips out to the Channel Islands, as Wyatt mentioned.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: So let's step back for a moment.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Why is all this work collecting seeds, propagating, removing invasive species, planting, watering, and monitoring so important?
45:44
SPEAKER_01: There are so many reasons it's so important.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: That's a it's a hard one to pin down, but it's we live in a time where we have you know so little native ecosystems left, and it's so important to protect what we have left and to restore areas that have been degraded for so long.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: And through that restoration, we can support thousands of species.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: And here in the nursery, we can fit right now.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: We have 10,000 plants, which once they're grown up and put in the ground, will cover a lot of land and offer food, nectar, etc., to so many different species.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: And as I said in the very beginning, plants are the foundation of our ecosystems.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: And so it all really starts with the plants.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why it's so important for us to go out and instore and restore non-native habitat and change it into sustainable or self-sustained native habitat.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: So think about this.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: Even if you lived in an apartment building, you could work with the landlord and talk about in the spaces around the apartment to begin adding natives.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Or you could talk to your HOA if you live in a in a homeowner association or on your own property.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: And just bringing back a couple natives makes a difference because then what we're creating is we're creating a pathway between the wildlands and the space in which we've taken up, yeah, where we don't, where we live.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: So you may want to consider buying a California native plant versus a nursery plant that may come from other areas of the world.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: When you walk into a typical nursery in Southern California, we see a lot of plants that come from South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia because the climate matches.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: But our natives work just as well.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: And speaking of purchasing native plants, where can these plants that I'm looking at that you're raising here be purchased retail-wise?
47:46
SPEAKER_01: That's a really good question.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: This is our first year as a native plant nursery in the area, so we're still working out plant sales.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, right now, most of our plants are going out to specific restoration projects.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: But as I mentioned in the beginning, we're partnered with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden now, and so they're co-owners in the space, and they will be buying a lot of our plants for their plant sales.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: So you can go to the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens plant sale this, I think it's November 7th, uh, 2026, if you're listening to this in time and you can buy some of our plants.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: So roughly every November, they're going to have their plant sale.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: And again, you can go on the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens website, and that'll give you a chance.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to be able to talk to experts too.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: We can tell you how to plant them and where to plant them and water and light and all that good stuff.
48:41
SPEAKER_01: And we are hoping to be doing, we can't have plant sales in this space due to the limited parking and and the You're difficult to find, I have to say.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: We are difficult to find.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we are hoping to be doing uh appointment plant sales so people can schedule an appointment and come by the nursery and and buy whatever they want when they come in then.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned for that.
49:05
SPEAKER_01: This is all in the works.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, and it just too, as I look around me, this has only been opened a year, and it's just amazing uh what this has become and what it will become as it expands.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's an important message for gardeners.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: When we look at a native plant in a one-gallon container at a nursery, we may see a plant, but ecologically, we're looking at something much bigger.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: What's one thing every gardener can do to help a native plant?
49:35
SPEAKER_00: Grow more.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Grow more of it.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: That is a fabulous message.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: And what's the most surprising thing you've learned about native plant restoration?
49:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a really good question.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Something surprising.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: Let me think about that.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: I I really am just so surprised by the the resiliency of our native plants.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of conversation of like with climate change happening, how eridification is happening in our regions, and that we need to be, you know, rethinking what we plant in our areas.
50:15
SPEAKER_01: But our native plants are really so resilient to both extremes of the extreme flooding and the extreme drought, that the more native plants we have, the the more resilient our home is to these various stressors that we're going to be having with climate change and that we are having with climate change.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's just important not to give up on what's still growing in your backyard and what's still holding on because those plants are they're much stronger than you think, and they can handle a lot.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: And they can adapt quite a bit.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: And also, too, that can create cooling islands where these native plants are planted that as our summers warm up, it will keep the space around where we live cooler.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that saves on air conditioning and all of these kind of good things that we're looking at with native plants.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: So California is famous for its spectacular biodiversity from coastal sage scrub and oak woodlands to chaparral wetlands, grasslands, and unique ecosystems that are found on the Channel Islands, which I've mentioned before.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: The next time you see a native plant in your garden, remember that you're not just adding something attractive to your landscape, you're potentially creating habitat, conserving water, supporting wildlife, preserving genetic diversity, and helping reconnect your garden with the natural California landscape.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Wyatt, and to all the people at Channel Islands Restoration who collect seeds, grow plants, maintain nurseries, and put those plants back into our native landscape.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: For gardeners interested in getting started with California natives or natives from your region, remember these three simple ideas.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: Know your region, which is your climate.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: Choose the right plant for the right space.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: We say that a lot on this program.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: And whenever possible, plant during the cooler, wetter season.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: For more information on Channel Island's restoration, visit CIRWeb.org.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: And that's easy to remember.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you just put Channel Island's Restoration in a search, it will come up for you.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get outside, get your hands in the soil, and keep growing.