In March of 2022, I had the opportunity to join OVLC’s Nursery intern program. Over the past year and a half I was mentored on a wide array of topics surrounding native botany and horticulture. I learned how to propagate from seedlings and cuttings, how to identify native plants, and how to really learn and listen from the natural world around me. This was an amazing opportunity to spark new passions, gain valuable experience, and participate in community outreach in an incredibly beneficial way. 

Despite showers, the Fall Native Plant Sale was a success, selling over 1,000 plants to the community. Though rain is usually not ideal for an event, we looked at it as a proper initiation into the planting season. It was a sweet water blessing for the plants we were passing on. For the nursery team, the sale is an emotional time. It is touching, bittersweet with letting go of our beloved friends, but ecstatic to see them go. I thank the community for being so accepting of our plant relatives, asking poignant questions and eager to get to know the plants. 

OVLC thanks Alessandra (aka Ale) for her many years of hard work in the nursery. She effervesces a love for her community and the land. There is a certain kind of lifestyle in nursery work, in which the rhythms of one’s life sync to that of nature. It is a lifestyle that requires patience, and a kind of passion that transcends the classic summer internship. Ale embodied this completely. When Ale began working at OVLC, she would ride her bike in the summer heat to the Ojai Meadows Preserve just to get her hands in the soil. She has always shown dedication to the care of plants, coming in to water any day of the week, leading her peers in oak plantings, and methodically studying the Latin names of our native plants (some days it sounded like we were casting Harry Potter spells in the nursery). It has been a wonderful experience to see someone youthful be certain that native plants are worth the hard work, study, and patience.