 You teach workshops through the Long Beach of Sustainability social media page that are awesome. I love your workshops. You have a huge breadth of knowledge of the plants at Willow Springs Park. And I was wondering if you could talk about your favorite topics that you teach and tell the patrons a little bit about the various subjects that you talk about in your workshops. Yeah. So some of the topics that we have we have shared in the past go from anywhere from seed collecting to seed storing, planting seasonally, so planting in the winter, how to tend to plants during our slumber season, right, so the summertime, how to encourage new growth. One of my favorites though is container gardening because I myself also don't have access to a yard and I understand that that's many of our realities. And so, but I still want to encourage people to incorporate native plants in any small way that they possibly can, and plants can do fairly well, native plants that is can do fairly well in containers for two or three years of their lives until we can transition them into a garden space or gift them to a neighbor who has access to land or a family member or friend. So that's one of my favorite topics. So how to build relationships of reciprocity with plants. I am a big believer that we can't just simply plant these plants as a resource or as a means of caring for ourselves for really taking the time to build intentional relationship with these plants as you do with your community, right, they are an extension of our community and how can we respect them as so. So I even teach the youth how to ask plants for consent so that they can continue to use these examples within their relationships beyond, right. We, you know, asking plants for consent when we want to gather them and letting them guide us in their relationship as well. So I think that's really interesting. And yeah, I think, you know, you're touching on the concept of just like having a symbiotic relationship with something which is which occurs in nature. And I think, you know, not to be too dark, but I think humans tend to have a more parasitic relationship with their surroundings where we just like take all the resources in an area like whether it's oil or plants or just like, yeah, there's types of farming that are not sustainable. And, you know, we just try to make a quick buck basically, but I think that's beautiful that, you know, you incorporate that into your philosophy of gardening. Yeah, and I think things are changing, right. There's a sense of shift and change coming where our youth is becoming very aware of the importance of pulling away from capitalism and not depending on the structures that we have depended on for so long. Right. So how can we build a symbiotic and reciprocal relationships with the land with one another and move on from there? Yeah. So I have a lot of I feel a lot of inspiration when I think about the future and how it is that our youth is going to move forward in this work as well. Can you tell us a little bit about the plant you brought next to you? Yeah. So I brought a few. Hopefully we have some time. Yeah, let's maybe just get into that. Like, yeah, tell us about your favorite plants or the ones you brought share with us today and maybe their uses too. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things every time someone asks me, what are your favorite plants? I'm like, so hard, all of them. So but today I did pick a few that I thought I would love to mention. So this is Yaro. Yaro Achillea millifolium is a beautiful plant that loves moist areas. So if you have a part, you know, of area in your garden that collects lost lots of moisture, if you got a gray water system going or if you create a nice little bio swell so that when the rain comes, the Yaro can benefit from that water collection. Yaro is beautiful. Yaro grows through rhizomes so under the earth. So it likes to spread out and it's a beautiful cover, cover crop. So instead of grass, we can grow a lot, you know, patches of Yaro. And then we get these beautiful white blooms. Another plant that I was excited to bring is mugwort. Mugwort or Artemisia. Oh, the Glaciana, they they got me there for a second. Is also a wonderful plant also likes a lot of moisture. And it's always best to know that even though native plants are drought tolerant, it is always best that they get two years of deep watering to really provide them with a strong and sturdy root system. So mugwort is also a really wonderful plant to have. And so many different pollinators come and visit mugwort. So just a great plant and very aromatic. Some folks like it, some don't. But it's one of my favorite due to their aromatics. When you're talking about the Yaro, you mentioned these words gray water and you said something bio something. But do you think you can maybe explain that to the viewers? What a gray water system is? Yes, I'm going to do my best, but there are many resources out there. But gray water is when we. Um, redirect water from, say, our washer into our landscaping. So there is a very particular way that this approach is taken. And typically, gray water is used to water fruit trees in backyards. So I encourage your viewers to definitely look into that. Is it's a it's a way of recycling water, reusing water that otherwise would, you know, go down into a drain. Where does that water go to? I'm blanking. Yeah, no, it was just basically turned to waste. But I think that's a great. I think the concept of gray water is awesome. And I think people, we just need to start incorporating that into our life. So until it becomes normal and maybe in the next 20 years, you know, it'll be like, oh, yeah, we don't think twice about it. We're just like, duh, we're going to reuse this water because it's precious. Absolutely. Yeah. Bio spells is when we dig a little. A little berm into our garden areas where within that little berm space, water can collect. And this is really helpful, again, for growing fruits and vegetables. You can incorporate it into your gardening, into your native landscaping. And it's another way also to collect and store water within your landscape or garden. Awesome. Do you happen to have another plant you would like to share with us? Yeah, I do. Actually, this is my third plant. And this beauty is Black Sage or Salvia Malifera. Black Sage is also another aromatic plant that I can't say enough of. It's part of the Mint family, so it has a very fresh, beautiful scent. And one of my favorite reasons to have this plant in my garden is because it just calls in lots of beautiful pollinators, hummingbirds, for instance. And just has a really beautiful aromatic scent. So after a nice rain, if you were to come here at Willow Springs, there's just this beautiful aroma that takes over. And these are the reasons why I like to incorporate some of these native plants into whatever landscape I can have access to, right? If a friend or a family member is interested in gardening or putting native plants in. These are probably some of the first that I will suggest. Awesome. Thank you. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about like maybe some gardening tips for the viewers as well, too. I liked how you were saying earlier how people can use like different containers that they have to kind of start their own garden and maybe their own nursery in a way, like in their own home. And yeah, what you would recommend for patrons and viewers? Yeah, I recommend playing, just playing, right? And figuring it out as you go. I have been humbled by by these plants numerous times. And I think one of the reasons why I really enjoy Yaro and Mugwort is because they are so giving and they're also quite easy to propagate from the visions. So plants like Yaro and Mugwort grow again under the earth through rhizomes. So you can actually separate those plants and gift them or spread them out in your yard. So those are some of the plants that I would suggest playing with. Other things is just allowing your you know, starting to explore different approaches. What can we incorporate into our landscaping other than grass? Grass is something that requires lots of water and lots of care. So let's start incorporating, you know, native plants that start incorporating plants that are going to flower and provide us with seed. Because again, these are ways that we can actually encourage and communicate with our neighbors to do the same, right? Gift your neighbor, gift your friends some black sage seeds so that we can all begin to incorporate playing with and growing native plants. Some other suggestions would be just simply to not give up. I think many of us fear that we don't have a green thumb. But in reality, it takes practice and it takes patience. And if these plants have taught me anything, it's definitely patience. And I'm still continuing to learn the lesson of patience as I work with them, right? So come out to Willa Springs. I'm happy to answer any questions. I encourage you to come out and access and enjoy our trail here so that you can also see how large these plants get. Do you want to incorporate them into your landscaping? Will you have a demo garden of that long view that I encourage you to check out? Are there any books on nature or sustainability you would like to recommend to our viewers? Yeah, I'm so glad that you are asking this question, because fortunately I'm at home with my own private collection and I have a few books that I'm really excited to share. So when we talk about native plants, one of the easy, beautiful books that I always refer to is California Plants and Guide to Our Iconic Flora by Matt Ritter. Really great images inside. I would encourage everyone and anyone if you have any interest in California native plants to pick this one up. Also, a beautiful book that so many have been speaking on. And you can tell that I've loved it because it's a little worn and torn, but Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmer, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. So this is a book that I always refer to when I teach on native plants, the relationship with native plants and land and how to be respectful in nature and also just to build a relationship with nature, right? So many of us have been disconnected for so many reasons. Another great book that I would love to encourage folks on this book, Farming Well Black, Soulfire Farms Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. They speak on everything from seedkeeping to restoring land. So lots of really, really great information that I think we should all really take some time to build our knowledge on how it is that we can, again, build a relationship with land for the benefit of our family, ourselves, our community. And hopefully we can start growing more foods in our front yards, in our backyards, in containers, in open spaces. And this is a book that I would highly recommend for that information. Also another great or one of my other favorites is Cooking the Native Way by Chia Cafe. We were just talking about this before we started recording, but they talk about acorn flower, right? So the process of acorn flower and how it is that native plants are used today by our indigenous communities and lots of really, really great inspirational recipes. So if you are growing at home, you can now learn how to incorporate native plants into your foods. That's awesome. I would love to see videos and stuff on cooking on YouTube. It's become such a big thing. And people love or like, you know, my mom she'll send me a video like, oh, I made this recipe I saw on TikTok. And it's so great. It's a great way to pull people into, like, you know, cultures and the plants that grow around them. Exactly. And just to highlight also this book, Chia Cafe also recorded some YouTube videos that you can find through PBS that are titled, I believe, Tending the Wild. So if you do PBS search on your YouTube search engine with Tending the Wild, you should be able to get some more resources on native plant cooking and and information. Before we move forward, though, I know that we talked about gray water, so I wanted to highlight just two books on that subject as well. So Gray Water, Green Landscape. This book is by Lauren Allen. Really great step by step information, diagrams that are easy to understand. Now, this work isn't always the easiest to implement in one's house, but this book makes it really easy to understand. Another book that I also would like to share is The Waterwise Home again by Lauren Allen. So if you are interested in gray water or other approaches, there's a lot more information here for you as well. That's all I got for now, and hopefully I can share more at a later time. That's awesome. Thank you so much for those recommendations. I'm so excited to read those. Yeah, they're great.