The Oxnard Native Plant Fest was a great event with the Theodore Payne Foundation, Growing Works, Birdwatching, Lenny Kaufer’s Herb talk, the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundantion, and had lots of booths of local art, crafts, plant shops, and garden accessories.

At the Oxnard Native Plant Fest, we visited the Santa Monica Mountain Fund booth. Rancho Sierra Vista Nursery needs our help to process cuttings, transplant seedlings, and sow seed flats! Thursday, Friday, or Saturday at 9 am. Get free native plants! Sign up at:  https://www.samofund.org/outdoors-calendar\

Antonio Sanchez, manager of the Rancho Sierra Vista Native Plant Nursery will speak to us in June! He has gathered native seeds, processed native cuttings, and transplanted the seedlings to revitalize the Santa Monica Mountains by propagating the area with native plants, wildflowers, milkweed, and live oak, walnut, and manzanita trees. He has distributed thousands of plants to homeowners in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. 

We also visited with past speaker, Channel Islands California Native Plant Society’s Terri Burgess! California is one of 36 designated biodiversity hot spots on earth, having 6500 native plants in California and 2400 only grow in California.  A great website for Californians to choose native plants for their area is: https://Calscape.org/

Plant native plants and a wildflower meadow in your landscape! Even in poor soil, you can plant native plants, which are adapted to local soils and climates and are the best sources of nectar and pollen to attract local beneficial insects, birds, and animals which help our garden grow and bring helpful bacteria to our soil and into our environment.