Landscapes as Nature

 “In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners” Explores “Landscapes as Nature” on KUCI 88.9 FM.  Reimagine your outdoor spaces with an inspiring new episode titled “Landscapes as Nature.” Host Teena Spindler welcomes special guest Ron Vanderhoff of Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach for an engaging conversation on the growing movement toward naturalistic landscape design.

This episode highlights how landscapes can function as living ecosystems. Known as “landscapes as nature,” these designs mimic native environments by incorporating layered plantings, diverse species, and regionally appropriate vegetation. By prioritizing native plants, gardeners can create outdoor spaces that are not only beautiful, but also sustainable and supportive of local wildlife.

Listeners will learn how to design with layers, variety, and texture—combining groundcovers, shrubs, and trees to reflect the structure of natural habitats.

“Landscapes as nature blend human creativity with ecological function,” says Spindler. “This approach helps gardeners create spaces that are both resilient and deeply connected to the environment.”.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Tina Spindler, and I'm the host of today's In the Garden with UC Master Gardener. And I am very excited to have a special guest on the show today, Ron, with Rogers Gardens. Ron Vanderhoff is the general manager and vice president of Rogers Gardens. He's also a professional horticulturalist and a native plant expert. And the reason I'm really excited about our show today is Ron has a concept about gardens and landscaping that I think should be very near and dear to all of us, and that is to try and think more of our landscapes as nature and not as some sort of false environment that we create. So, Ron, welcome to the show. I'm really excited you're here today.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Hi, Tina. Glad to be here. This should be fun.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah. Before we get started on our topic, which I think is going to be so fun because you have such a broad horticultural knowledge and you are so in tune with our native landscapes here in Orange County. But first, I know I'm always curious to hear people's personal stories about how they actually got acquainted with, became attracted to gardening or landscaping. And I understand, like a lot of us, you started as a very young child.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Well, I think a lot of people that are hooked into gardening, maybe at least in my generation, that's when it started. And I think my earliest memories of my gardener probably is a four or five-year-old out in my backyard and up in the Los Angeles area with my father. And just you know, all I remember is is strawberries, uh, picking them and eating them right out of the garden. And I remember roses, and I remember a willow tree that was extremely messy that I really didn't I really hated.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Did you have to rake leaves or something?

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, especially, you know, as I get a little bit bigger and it can handle the rake, that seemed like that's all I did.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Back in the day when we all did chores, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Exactly. I'm surprised I still like plants even after that willow tree. It was just really messy all the time. And I my job was to rake the leaves up, and it seemed like it was dropping leaves all year long. I'm sure it didn't. But somehow, in spite of that, I fell in love with plants and and the outdoors and the gardening, and not just the plants, but the bugs and the butterflies and the rocks and the birds and all the things that were kind of out in the garden.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

So what we would all call nature. Yeah. So you got introduced to nature in your in your own backyard, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

I think I might have been lucky. I didn't have a cell phone back then, and we didn't have some of the things we have today. So the garden was my entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, yeah. I think kids, if their parents aren't getting them out in the garden, are kind of missing that part of life. So one one of the goals of you know having this show and and for Master Gardeners in general is to introduce families and kids to the joys of getting outside. So I hope we get to do a lot of that today on the show. Um can you tell me after being a child? Obviously, you must have made the transition to getting into the field on a professional basis. How did how did that pathway come about?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Well, um, you know, like a lot of teenagers, I don't think I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was my love of the outdoors just kind of kept growing, and I tried to figure out what I wanted to do, maybe, and started taking some classes and in high school and then later on in in college. And uh it I decided I wanted to be a landscape architect at a fairly early age. Uh-huh. Um and so I learned my horticulture as it pertained to that, and uh went to uh work for a landscape architect uh while I was going to school, but I found that I was too far away from the plants and nature and outdoors and too much in an office. And of course, doing that you're basically and back in those days, you're laying out plots and you're doing measurements and you're working in the office an awful lot, and I felt disconnected from my real love. So sort of working at a garden center part-time just to sort of stay connected and drifted away from landscape architecture, and uh here I am a whole lot later. I haven't left I haven't left the nursery industry.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Well, we all love Rogers Gardens, that's for sure. Um, and I know that that some of the things that Rogers Gardens in particular has been instrumental in is encouraging uh even before we had this terrible drought. I remember thinking, you know, how kind of avant-garde and maybe a little bit dangerous, you know, from the the nursery person's perspective, the retailer's perspective, to um encourage people to start using that sort of plant palette. Now, of course, with current conditions, we're all looking to hopefully transform our yards, you know, to that sort of plant palette. So so can you can you tell me a little bit and our listeners about this concept of landscape as nature as opposed to landscape as just kind of this extension of a false decorating theme that you might have indoors?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Well, you've kind of got it there. You know, I I think that we're moving in Southern California into a better understanding of our outdoor spaces, at least our urban outdoor spaces. And you know, I think maybe historically we wanted to take those outdoor spaces and kind of manipulate them and and see them as areas to design or to play and and kind of do it in the same way we might do a kitchen or a or a living room or something inside the house, that it's really different than that. And uh and I think now people are starting to look at those spaces as uh environments that are living, that are alive, that have uh nature happening, that uh are not stagnant, are not um uh that are ever-changing. And so I see a very blurry line uh and and even more in the future between a garden and a natural space. And I think some of that perhaps is forced upon us with less resources and and taking better uh care of our our our space. Um but I think also it's just sort of a a change in our um uh our culture and uh I think the next generation is growing up with a better understanding of the planet and the resources, and it's not an endless supply of water or energy or whatever the topic is. So anyway, this the the concept is just sort of blurring what's on your side of the fence versus what's on the other side of the fence, meaning the hillside or the or the beach or the canyon or the mountain or whatever might be on that other side of uh of that fence. And and they're really not two separate spaces. They're spaces that kind of should be working together uh with each other.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

And and when you see that executed in in a good way, when it when it starts to really happen, what what benefits do you see from that for the homeowner, for the community, just on several different levels, what benefits do you see?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Well, emotionally, I think it it connects people, it it soothes people, it helps people understand where they are in the world or in the state. Um when a landscape is a reflection of its place, it tends to have some kind of almost a spiritual quality to it, and it tends to maybe make that uh those people a little bit more healthy, at least uh at least mentally a little bit more healthy. They might uh uh feel a little bit better about themselves when there's a connection between where you live, in our case Orange County, and the natural area of Orange County. Um I just think it makes you feel better about yourself and about what you're doing and about how you're um you're handling that outdoor area. Um, of course, there's other benefits other than just how we feel. There's the real benefits of adding uh to the environment and not subtracting from it, perhaps, but adding a habitat for birds and animals and wildlife and uh and and absorbing pollutants from the environment. Uh and so there's real practical advantages to managing your garden in in these ways. Um but there's also very human advantages and just that it makes you feel good, it makes you understand where you are and and and uh and a garden I think should reflect its place. We have one unique quality in Southern California because of our climate. We can grow almost anything. We can have a garden that the truth. Yeah, we can have a Cape Cod garden if we want. We can have a tree. With enough water. But we could have a desert garden or a northwestern garden, and we can do it all, and there are examples, great examples of all of that. But we can also have a California garden, uh, or even an Orange County garden, and I think that's pretty exciting. I think celebrating Orange County and Southern California uh in our gardens is just beginning to happen. People come from the entire world to Southern California to enjoy our climate and our weather and our outdoors. Um we don't need to display a garden necessarily from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Uh it's funny that you say that because I had the opportunity to go on my bucket list trip, which was to England this last May, went to the Chelsea Flower Show and all of that. But one of the places that we visited was this garden that had biospheres. And guess what was in one of the biospheres? California Garden, which just you know cracked me up. Here we were in in England, and I'm all excited about seeing all of the English gardens, and they have created under this artificial biosphere, and they're so excited to have all of these California. I mean, I'm looking at poppies in a biosphere, and I'm just I'm just cracking up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

There we go. I mean that's that's exactly right. We just look out our own window and we should be celebrating where we are. Yeah. It's an amazing, amazing place that we're fortunate enough to live.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Now, what um have you seen when when you see these landscapes installed and that that fit into Orange County? Do you um get to go back and see them or or talk to um clients about the benefits that they feel? I mean, are are they are they feeling um in addition to the mental connection and feeling better about themselves, do that do they see more uh integration of uh wildlife or butterflies, birds, that sort of thing? Do they find their garden more alive because of that installation?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Well, one of the advantages of working at a garden center is that we get to talk to customers and gardeners all day long. And so we get lots of feedback on what's going on and what they like and what they don't. We don't see their gardens as much other than mostly through photographs, uh, but we see their gardens through their conversations. What we find is that people become way more engaged in their gardens, and I mean they're interacting with their gardens far more where, you know, maybe when the garden was uh a lawn and some boxwoods and uh and a few trees and flowers along the borders and so on, um, it was a nice garden to look at and and and it it was pretty, but they didn't really interact with it. They didn't really get involved in the garden very deeply. And what we're finding is that as people move into more habitat gardens, more um of these California gardens, is that they start becoming engaged in the garden. They start spending more time in the garden.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Not from a distance, but up close. They start paying attention to the seasons a little bit more, they start understanding and seeing the insects and the birds and the bio the wildlife and so on that are visiting, and that opens up their whole window to nature. And that's really one of my main goals is to s is to have people understand nature, and often a window to nature is through their garden, especially in these urban uh environments that we live. Uh we don't have nature necessarily right next to us, but we have nature right outside of our window in our garden. And nature uh in a a sage, you know, uh that's blooming and and and things are visiting it, or you're getting the fragrance off of the foliage, and you see the seasonal change in that plant, and it it represents summer and spring and fall and the different seasons and the animals that are visiting and so on, it just pulls people into their garden, and it really it opens up that window to nature as a whole. Even though that's in their garden, it helps them understand how nature works.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

That's awesome. Is it in your experience, because typically in Orange County we have relatively small lots, right? Is is this still feasible for us to do when we when we have just these very small lots?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Well, good great question, Tina, and and there's kind of two answers to that, I think. There's certainly what can you do in your own garden? And even in very small gardens, you can have uh plants that are attracting pollinators or uh requiring less resources and water and and bringing some life to the garden. But the other approach to it is at the community level or the you know the larger level. If if we look at these urban environments as a collective environment, not individual uh environments, that necessarily the garden doesn't stop at your fence line, the garden includes the neighbor and the neighbor's neighbor and so on and so on. And a lot of the research that's going on, in fact, right here at UC Irvine, is to try to understand these as actual ecosystems, that the urban parts of Orange County, if you put all those gardens together, small ones and big ones, and everything in between, you wind up with an environment itself, an ecosystem that uh that connects all of those gardens together. So no matter how small your garden might be, it may just be a little patio or maybe even just container plants, it's part of the garden next to you and behind you, and and it's part of an entire urban ecology, uh outdoor urban ecology. And if you think about Orange County and how much of our land mass is really in urban la landscaping, residential and commercial, um, it's a great deal. It's a large part of our land is in these manipulated environments. But if we can manipulate them or or manage them in a little bit more natural way, it creates an enormous impact on Southern California, on the ecology, on heat, on carbon, on resources that are either being used or not being used. So you know, don't necessarily think about just your garden. That's that's your uh responsibility, but think about how it connects to everything around you, and if you know, I I dream if you know if everybody kind of got this a little bit, and you know what what could happen in Southern California in terms of nature is pretty profound. If if we kind of think beyond our own garden and just how it connects to all of these other urban gardens.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

I I I think especially if you think about especially you know where where we particularly are in in uh Orange County, there are a lot of planned, you know, southern Orange County is a little bit newer, so a lot of the developments are are very planned, and there's green belts and a lot of homeowners associations that have control of a fairly significant amount of space. And that's that's an amazing revolutionary concept, I think. If you can, and as a homeowner, if you're involved on one of these homeowners associations, if you can transition the thinking from, you know, these passive trimmed hedges and thirsty lawn areas that are your your common area to something that is much more nature-oriented. I mean, what a transition that would be.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Right, exactly. Well, and and that's that's my point is if we can move gardens just a little bit in a large scale in a large uh amount of space, uh, we can really make a big difference in the ecology that's going on here in in Orange County. Especially with things like birds and and pollinators and insects and butterflies and things like that, which are pretty obvious and easy to see. Um but uh but it's but again it's about thinking kind of past and beyond your own garden and understanding how it interconnects with that homeowner's association, perhaps. Yeah. Uh or or the neighbors uh down the street.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

So we always like to leave our listeners give or give our listeners um a little bit of uh practical you know steps that that they can take. Um and I think a lot of people would be really excited about this idea to convert since since they already know that they should be converting their landscape just from a straight resource use of water and an expense to them because our water rates have all gone up and we all have allocations. So I think a lot of people are already thinking, uh, if they haven't already, I want to transition my landscape from thirsty to something that's more natural. What what advice can you give them to uh lead them through that process of getting to a landscape that's more natural?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Well, perfect. Well, I I think most importantly is take small steps. Most people are not garden experts. Uh maybe some listening to this show or a little bit further along, but but the but the main the most of the people who own homes and landscapes uh are intimidated by those outdoor spaces. They're they don't understand all of the plants and all of the they don't know what's native and what's not native and what's a good plant or a bad plant or you know, and so they're intimidated and they're and they're they're afraid. And they want, I think for those people you want to give them small successes that you can build upon. And uh, you know, I'm very engaged in native plants and so on, but there are there are some of the native plant community that thinks that we should go completely all native and everything that's not native should go away. And we're gonna lose people. Um they're not gonna make that big of a transition all at once. A person's not gonna take out their lawn and their and their clipped hedges and and their flower beds and and and and go to 100% native. There are very few people that'll do that. And there are a few, uh, but they're certainly the exception. So our approach, in my approach, is just to move people a little bit, give them some success. Start off easy. Just add a few plants. If you're going to uh add some plants to your garden anyway, just have that kind of in your shopping list of ideas. Well, I want something that's going to support wildlife. I want something that's going to be adapted to my climate. I want something that isn't going to require a lot of excessive nutrition or fertilizer additions or or sprays or or or something like that. So just move a little bit. We've had, you know, at lawns have become kind of a conversation in the last few years because of the the water situation. And and you know, people have stopped watering their lawns in some cases or decided they want to uh you know maybe take them out and they're and they're just afraid. They don't know what to do. There's this big space.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, it's it's intimidating.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, it was easy when it was a lawn. It was just, you know, I had a sprinkler and a guy that mowed it, and and I you know, it's kind of repeated that every week and I didn't have to worry about it, and they're intimidated. Well, maybe just take you know some of that lawn out and just you know put some uh uh call them California friendly plants sometimes. You know, just take some plants that you like. Don't don't worry about going all the way from A to Z uh in one motion. Just just go a little ways down the down the that that path. And you'll you'll most people I think will find that they'll get really engaged in the process. And then a little bit of success will they have a comfort level with that, and then they'll try a little bit more, and then a little bit more, and and before you know it, they've made a big change in the amount of nature that's going on in their garden. But it won't come all at once. There'll come a little bit at a time.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

That that's great advice. 'Cause because most people don't have or don't want to devote the resources to hiring a landscape architect and ripping everything out, redoing their irrigation and replanting an entire landscape. That's just too daunting, too expensive, and and most of us are not going to go down that path. So I really like the idea of, you know, maybe taking that lawn and you know carving out, you know, uh a bed around it where you can can put appropriate you know irrigation for for those lower water use plants. And and and I agree with you. I think boy once you see some of those you know beautiful California friendly as you said. Now now can you um address for folks too because I think they there's also kind of a misconception that if you transition into a more natural landscape, um you know we we know that in Southern California in Orange County, you know our hills are brown in the summer, you know, and and that may not be our favorite look for for our own personal landscapes. Do you have any advice for you know how you can have a a natural nature friendly landscape that is still interesting throughout all of the seasons?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Well yes uh one of the fears of a native garden is that you know it's going to look uh it's gonna look off color especially during the summer months and and there is some truth to that it's going to slow down during the summer most native gardens uh and it's gonna uh wake up again uh toward the fall and winter and spring and so there is some truth to that so you know as a gardener we need to be uh a little more careful about the plants that we choose perhaps and uh but most of us aren't going to want to recreate the hillside uh they're gonna want to you're gonna want to create something that is still a garden that is still manipulated uh but it's manipulated less and it's uh and it's using maybe plant material that's more climate adapted so the first place to start would be mostly with evergreen plants uh you know some of our native plants and and other Mediterranean plants uh have a uh uh a discoloration during the summer and just uh avoid those plants that uh and those may be in the hillsides uh in some cases but but there are many evergreen plants uh that don't do that they may not uh flower as profusely in the summer but they'll keep their foliage uh you know all through the hot summer months and then and then there are uh uh a suite of native plants that do provide summer color plant called golden bush which is just incredibly colorful now it won't be colorful in spring uh when we would think that everything would be in bloom so part of executing a really good uh habitat garden and and native uh nature garden is to have a succession of flowers uh and that is to have uh some selections that will provide summer flower maybe even fall flower some of our pinstamens can be quite late in blooming California fuchsia is a very famous native plant that is in full bloom in the summer and fall months um and so still have your spring bloom because that's a lot of what California gardens are about but hold back some of those for a summer uh full infusion of flowers as well and and there's plenty of plant lists that can help you with that and resources that can give you examples of uh Mediterranean and and and native plants that are summer and fall bloomers as opposed to just spring bloomers. You can also add color uh through the wildlife that you're attracting and I think sometimes interesting thoughts that's not thought of as much but but bluebirds in the garden or aureoles during the summer that are bright and showy and flashing through the garden uh for me that's color in a garden and or the butterflies. Or the butterflies or the hummingbirds and the iridescent uh bodies and so on and they're adding color to the garden and in some ways that's almost more exciting than the flower color because it's unexpected and it's exciting when you see it. So yeah the butterflies and the and the and the uh the birds and such and of course berries will add color and bark will even add color manzanitas and things like that that have color in their in their in their stems and their barks. And then of course you can also just do great design by adding color through your pottery, through your garden art, through your wall treatments that's a great idea your furniture your garden furniture yes so that's that's a fabulous idea yeah yeah so color cannot only be from the flowers but color can be from the animals that you're attracting to your garden and through just uh good techniques and in uh garden design.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah yeah well you know I hadn't even thought about you know because that's one of my hesitations I'm a big flower person you know roses bulbs all of that kind of stuff and yet where I live in Irvine um my side and slope and front yard were mandated by the developer to be planted in California friendly um plant palette. And so it's great but of course me not wanting to let go of my color uh still have my flower beds in the back. But you know at least I'm being a little water thrifty by having most of the yards California friends.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

That's perfectly normal Tina and and I you know sometimes there's a guilt of well everything isn't a California native and my garden isn't California native in its entirety I have I have Australian plants and and plants from South Africa and Mexico and a succulent area that is mostly not native. So yeah it doesn't have to go you know all the way just like you know like I mentioned earlier just just add a little bit more habitat. Just move that way a little bit and you never won't even notice you know over the course of time your garden will become more friendly to uh to nature.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Well and and you know I lived in another part of Irvine for many years and uh had a very traditional you know more English style garden and then when we moved to this neighborhood made the transition to a much more California friendly garden and I have to agree with you I absolutely love that we have all of this nature that that has now come to us in the form of you know butterflies uh in the form of jackrabbits which I could do with coyotes which you know may maybe they're not my favorite but we also get deer coming up you know to the edge of the yard and that's that's pretty special too. So it is it is really fun from a personal standpoint to have made this some of this transition and I hadn't really thought though about that adding color to the garden but you're absolutely right all of the the wildlife that is there in the form of mostly the birds and the butterflies really ha gives me color year round in in that environment.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Well and and not just for color but you know the other part of these gardens is they're living uh you know all gardens are living in terms of their plants but when you go into a and I'll I'll just I'll call it a California friendly garden or a habitat garden or you know you have a native garden when you go into those gardens and you pause for a moment you really get a sense that the garden is alive and alive not just in the plants that are growing but alive in the rest of the community that it's supporting. And and I don't want to diss on on other landscapes too much but when you go into an environment that isn't uh as much of that it's still very pretty and it's still beautiful and and but it but there's something missing. There's something missing in a garden that doesn't have animals visiting it and insects buzzing and uh a lizard crawling over in the corner maybe. And there's something different about that and that experience. And for me a garden needs to have a little bit of the former it needs to have some life in in it. It needs to be living it needs to have not just the plants living but it needs to support uh other forms of life as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I I agree and I in you know my I I think you and I are of a similar age so our our children are grown but um I I think about the garden I have now had I had that garden when my children were young they would have adored this garden because there would have been so much exploring and discovering and like you said capturing of lizards as opposed to you know the lawn and the straight flower beds where there wasn't a lot of exploring that could be done.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

So I think that's a really good point is that our our youth and our children and so on uh might not get engaged in the garden if it's uh you know not if it doesn't have that life happening if it's very uh trimmed and and beautiful you know that it doesn't always appeal to young children. They you know you watch children they want to go out and chase the lizard and they want to go out and you know look at the ants that are crawling around ask what that that snail thing is and what it does and and listen to the birds and so on. And a garden that doesn't have those things doesn't engage the children and of course those children grow up to be you and me at some point and uh there's a real benefit to having children engaged in gardens.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Absolutely and to get away from the electronics I think most parents are looking for ways to get them away from the electronics but it has to be something that will engage them in a and a very you know kind of traditional just a lawn and a clipped hedge kind of garden probably isn't going to be able to engage them unless there's things they can discover out there. So yeah another another great reason to make the switch from a straight landscape to to nature um do you have any uh for folks who are now inspired to try and try and pursue this this uh landscape as nature concept do you have any I mean first of all they can come to Rogers Gardens you you guys always have great displays and usage of California friendly plants that are just gorgeous you know completely uh you know switch from the high water usage but every bit as beautiful as the you know gardens 15 years ago that that were done here. So I know that that this is a great place to come to get some ideas but do you have any um books or other reference materials or or websites that that you think are um of use to people who who want to do a little exploring on their own of this topic?

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Well sure I I'm gonna answer that uh first in an odd way to really to really understand uh a garden that I that I'm talking about here a nature garden uh probably the first place to start is actually outside of your garden and and get involved and get engaged and go for a walk and visit some of the natural areas of Orange County um that was going to be one of my other questions I guess I asked them I asked them backwards I should have asked you that question first. Well I was I was waiting for those questions so I'm just gonna go that direction yeah let's do so to understand a a garden that connects with nature you first have to understand what the model is and the model is uh out in the hills or uh uh uh uh up in the canyons or whatever and by really engaging in that by getting involved in in nature outside of your garden it'll give you a perspective and a context to bring things back into your garden um so go for hikes go for walks uh get involved in uh organizations or groups that conduct these sorts of things uh you know I'm I I'm giving myself a little plug here I'm involved in the California Native Plant Society and I lead a great organization yeah I lead I lead a lot of interpretive uh hikes and I didn't know that field trips and so on and the point is to get people to understand how nature happens in Orange County and where would folks find out about hikes and that that people are leading that they could join in on well I'm glad you asked the interview because if if you didn't I was going to have you anyway. Anyway well for me and and our group it would be through uh connecting with the Orange County chapter of the California Native Plant Society and that can just be found through our website it's OCCnps.org or just type in California Native Plant Society and you'll you'll get pretty close to it. And from there is all sorts of resources not just on gardening but on native plants as in general and our the field trip program is listed there and you can pick and choose and they're all free and open to the public and and we go really slow no one's going to be intimidated. We take people to very local places uh Newport Back Bay or uh San Joaquin Marsh or just very simple, easy places. Or we take people out into the hills and up into the higher mountains and and talk about the plants there and as well. And there's other lots there's lots of other great groups all these open areas and natural spaces have groups that sort of take care of them and most all of them have interpretive programs and field trips and and days for people to come out and learn. I really encourage people when they're trying to understand local nature to go with the group go on your own too go for walks and and explore the hills but really important is to go with somebody that can really explain it. It'll open up the your eyes to what's happening on the hillsides and in the canyons and in the fields in Orange County. It's one thing to walk through those areas and look at the plants and maybe you know a few of them and maybe you don't and but it's you can it's incredibly more powerful when you walk that same path with an expert, with somebody who really understands and can tell the stories of those plants and why is this plant growing here? And why is it not growing twenty feet over there? And why is it blooming now and why is it not blooming six months from now and why is that bug on that plant and not on that plant and and all of these little backstories and when you understand those stories and you understand how things kind of happen in nature it opens up enormous insights into your own garden. Even if you're not even if you are gardening with hedges and lawns it still helps you understand how those plants persist and what they need and well when you when you know where a plant came from and you know what tolerances it has and what its rainfall is and its natural world versus your garden world it just makes gardening so much less of a struggle and so much more enjoyable and it's sort of like riding a bicycle downhill versus uphill. It's just so much less effort technology when you understand what that plant wants and what it doesn't want. And you you learn that by visiting nature and visiting hillsides and canyons and and beaches and wherever plants are growing on their own and not assisted by people and you really learn it when you have somebody there to explain it. And maybe it's a book but a live person is just so much more powerful.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Sure. What are some of your favorite areas to hike in in Orange County well almost anything that's wild I really enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

For me and a lot of my nature friends I think we like places that offer uh as much variety in their habitats as possible canyons are good places for that. Generally in a canyon you at the very bottom of that canyon have completely different plant community and different plants and a different ecology going on than the hillside that's right next to it. And then understanding that that canyon might be facing east and west and and noticing the differences on the east slopes and the west slopes. So for me canyons are really fun. And the more wild the canyon the more further away from people in development the more pristine and the more natural and the more exciting it is.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

So do you do a lot of hiking east towards towards our hills in the east?

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Spent a lot of time up in the Santa Ana Mountains and the adjoining San Mateo wilderness which is sort of in the south part of the county so you know I for the local folks here, you know Upper Tribuco Canyon uh is just wonderful. The upper reaches of Silverado Canyon are amazing. A little bit further off the track is San Mateo Canyon. It's a national wilderness area and it's our only wilderness area in in our local area and there's no roads there's no mountain bikes there's no mountain bikes you can head off in one of the trails into the San Mateo Canyon wilderness and not see another person for the entire day.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Where I'm not familiar with the San Mateo Wilderness. How would I get to it say from Rogers Gardens?

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Well there's different access points it's south of Highway 74 is sort of on the border between San Diego County and Los Angeles County and the access points are all trails so you know you you can't really drive into it and and just and and experience it that way you have to hike into it. And that's meant that way in order to preserve it. So you can access it from from uh parts of Highway 74 uh which is the Ortega Highway it's well known uh you can also have uh access it from going uh up from the backside parts of Mirieta and Temecula and kind of coming in that way so those are the main access points are either from the east along Ortega Highway along Ortega Highway from the uh from that side but they're amazing and and our native plant society always leads a trip or two into that area um to understand the native plants and and the ecology that's going on there. And then one other place you know there are lots of places here along the coast but uh Aliso Canyon which is in South Laguna is an amazing place and it's surrounded by development but it's still very pristine area and we have very rare plants and very rare plant communities in that area. Right here on the campus at at UC Irvine we have an ecological reserve that most people don't know about right uh on the edge of the campus and it's well protected and it's a wonderful place especially in spring to see wildflowers and uh and again there's sometimes there's there's groups that will take you through that preserve and uh and explain the plants and identify what you're looking at. And that's just right here in Irvine. So there's nature all around us depending on what you like if you like mountains or oceans or coasts or pine forests we have it all here in in Orange County.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Yeah that's that's great and we just don't spend enough time getting out and exploring it sadly.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Well and and that's how you learn how a garden grows because a garden is nature it's sometimes manipulated uh through additions of water and nutrition and things like that but it is still nature and so when you understand how real nature works that's not being assisted it helps enormously to understand how to manage your own garden and and it helps you understand why things aren't growing well or why things are growing well once you understand how uh natural areas function.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

That's great. Do you do you have um I know I I get questions a lot from folks uh come the rains and we get a good year of rains and people will ask me And it's all forgotten. Yeah it's all forgotten. But but then they'll ask me I'm not sure why they think as a master gardener I know this but um they always ask me well where should I go hiking to see wildflowers? Do you have any favorite spots to go um in this in the winter spring to to see wildflowers?

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Well I I kind of chase the the flowers through the county that uh you know part of my responsibility with the Native Plant Society is with uh managing and monitoring rare plants and and some sort of status and and distribution of our native plants and where they are and where they aren't. So I'm moving around the county and I'm kind of following the plants as they go through their cycles. So I'll usually start on the coast at the beginning of the season because the temperatures are milder there and we get our first blooms in the coastal canyons and the coastal grasslands and the And places like that. And as the season uh it moves through the months, I'll move further up into the mountains until eventually I'll get up uh up high into the Santa Ana Mountains. And and that's kind of how the bloom moves through any kind of an area. It moves from the milder coastal low elevations first, that's where the bloom starts, and then it sort of finishes up in the pine forests, up in our case in Orange County, up above 5,000 feet. And so uh, you know, that's what I would recommend for other people too, if they're trying to uh, you know, follow flowers uh through the county. You can do it over months and months and months if you just kind of follow that succession from coast to mountains.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

That's that's a great idea. You know, I I I do a few hikes here along the coast, you know, when when the wildflowers are in bloom and really enjoy it. But it never occurred to me to go inland and go up the mountain. And and you're right, you probably get wildflower bloom into summer up there.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

If you go to the San Bernardino Mountains, or you know, only an hour and a half away. I mean you can see meadows of wildflowers in July uh, you know, quite commonly, uh because this the bloom is much later. And you go to the Sierras, you can even add another month to that. So that also is how a garden, how you can manage your garden by understanding this, understanding these successions of blooms, you can manipulate that a little bit in your own garden, and you can have coastal wildflowers that bloom very early in the year, and then you can get into your mountain wildflowers that may have a much later bloom, and that's how you avoid some of that summer.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Interesting, yeah. So, what's your experience speaking of wildflowers in in having wildflowers in home gardens? Is is that something that you can successfully try as a as a home gardener? Um, and and what would be the process to to make that happen?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Well, certainly, I mean the easiest when people think of wildflowers, they're usually probably thinking of annuals. Of course, there are lots of perennials that can add wild add flowers too, but uh but for annuals uh it's really the time to start planting uh those annuals, most of them. And a lot of people are going to plant them from either well, either seeds or starts, but seeds are the most economical uh method. And so you want to time the seed being added to your garden with the onset of our fall and winter rains. And usually that happens in November and December. The last few years it's anybody's guess. It hasn't happened. But but assuming that we get at least some modest rains uh this year, ideally uh those lupins and poppies and and other plants would be the seed would be distributed just at the onset of a nice uh four or five-day rainy spell. And and uh and the rain will uh six will do the germination for you. So uh applying the wildflowers at the right time of the year is critical. They may not be in bloom until February or March or something like that, but but it's but applying seed during that late in the season is pretty futile. Right it won't really work that way. You've got to get the seed down and let the winter rains develop those roots and develop those young plants, and then a little bit of sunshine later in the year begins the bloom process. So getting the wildflower seed added, or if you're gonna put starts in, getting the starts put in during the winter, uh not in the spring, even though they're starting to bloom, then a good gardener will know, always, you know, get them in, get them well rooted, and then enjoy the show uh a few months later.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Is is there for wildflower, say say you're going to do the seeds, is there some soil prep that you would recommend, or are they so hardy that you just take handfuls and throw them out there?

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Well, I wish it was as easy as just tossing the seeds around. Uh so soil prep generally no. Uh you're dealing with plants that are well adapted, so they really won't need much soil prep. Probably the biggest concern is uh weed growth. Um once you uh have a bare area of soil, you uh apply uh seeds to it, wildflower seeds or or annual seeds, and you begin uh uh graching that soil or preparing that soil or getting it ready for that seed, and maybe you add a little bit of extra waterings to help germinate the seeds, while you're also going to germinate whatever other weed seeds are present in that soil. So one technique that helps is to uh irrigate that soil a little bit first, put the sprinkler out there, use a little bit of that that scarce resource, but germinate those weed seeds. And then either cultivate them in and just you know rake them off and and and and kill them that way, or if you want to use a little mild herbicide, that's your choice. Um, and then maybe irrigate again and get another crop of weed seeds to germinate and do the same thing again. Do a couple of cycles of that will exhaust most of the seed bank from those weed seeds. Then, and you decide to put the lupins or the poppies or the uh clarkias or the other wildflowers out, they're not competing with all of those weed seeds. The weed seeds have already germinated, you've already killed them, and now you have a a better chance for the wildflowers to really uh do their business.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

Oh, great advice. That's what I've been doing wrong. I haven't been haven't been getting those weeds out, and so then I crawl around on my hands and knees and I'm trying to pull those weeds out in between the the wildflowers. And of course, if you haven't grown those wildflowers before, you're not sure which is the weed and which is the wildflower necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

So that's true.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

That that's always a challenge. Um I assume that also this time of year, if we were going to be doing some transition to a more nature type of landscape, that we would want to do it in this uh wintery kind of season where we are going to get take advantage of the rain, rainfall if we get some?

SPEAKER_01 50:23

This is the absolute beginning of the gardening season, really, in in Southern California, is is really right now, mid-October, and and and uh now really is when we should be spending most of the time uh building our gardens, planting our gardens, uh uh designing and organizing our gardens. Uh unlike most of the country, uh gardening isn't about spring here. Uh we have the show, perhaps then, but really gardens wake up in the fall. And our winters are so mild, our rainfall and moisture pretty much all happens from November to about April. And so we can have the benefit of those mild temperatures, all of that free moisture that we're we're going to get this winter. We hope. Um and having the plants in the garden and in the ground at the onset of that growth period uh it means you're working with nature as opposed to trying to uh do something out of that cycle. And I think as most of the master gardeners will know, uh the other half of the country, or the other 90% of the country actually, doesn't have this cycle. So we need to be careful about what we read in garden books and what we see on HGTV and so on. It's not necessarily wrong, it's just not geared for this narrow little niche of the country that we're fortunate to live in. Our gardening cycle starts in October and November, uh, not in March or April. So now is the time to be out doing your plant purchasing, designing your garden, getting plants into the ground in the next 60 or 90 days, and enjoying those winter rains, those mild temperatures, so that by the time summer does come and the rains stop, the plants are already established, they're already deeply rooted, and they're they're ready for summer.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Great advice. So I hope I hope we've inspired everyone to get out there and fill up their wagons with lots of plants and and create not landscapes but some nature in their own yards. Ron, thanks so much for being on our show today. I think this has been one of my favorite and inspiring shows and just tweaks our mindset a little bit about how we think about gardening.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Well, it's a privilege to be here. Thank you very much, Tina, for letting me chat.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Thanks so much.