Rewild ojai

Ojai is famous for its stunning native flora, and inviting that beauty into your landscaping comes with a host of benefits. Whether you are seeking drought tolerance, more pollinators, or habitat for wildlife, a native plant garden sows the seeds of climate resilience in your own backyard.

Natives are Necessary

Our incredible native plants have co-evolved with specific pollinator species for millenia, something that imported plants lack. In Ojai we have around 200 bird species, 64 bee species, and 168 moth and butterfly species, all of which depend on native plants for survival. Creating habitat in our gardens connects us to our surrounding wild landscapes and increases the likelihood of survival for our precious local fauna.

Rewild Ojai empowers our community to invest in habitat creation and make Ojai a better place for wildlife and people alike. Through our garden certification program, our native plant starter kits, and our private lands restoration, we will work together to increase native plant cover in the valley. Planting natives restores fragmented habitats, revives ecological processes, and enhances biodiversity.

Sources
1eBird. (n.d.) Top Hotspots. Retrieved October 9, 2023 from https://ebird.org/region/US-CA-111/hotspots
2Edible Ventura. (2016, March 09). Beyond the honey bee. https://edibleventuracounty.ediblecommunities.com/food-thought/beyond-honey-bee
3 California Native Plant Society. (n.d.). Butterflies and moths of California. Retrieved October 2, 2023 from https://calscape.org/loc-34.4480,-119.2429(Ojai,-ca)/cat-Lep/ord-popular/?&poploc=1&srchcr=sc651afe022d787

More resilient. More biodiverse.

More interesting. More wild.

Your garden can be so much more.

Plant natives. Rewild Ojai.

Ready to Rewild?

Native Plant Starter Garden Kits

The Rewild Starter Garden includes ten one-gallon plants pre-selected for your garden conditions, and a bonus Rewild yard sign. Sign up and receive a special nursery newsletter by our Native Plant Specialist, full of helpful tips for making your native plant garden shine.

plant sale

Certify your garden

Ready to take the next step towards a better future for water and wildlife in Ojai? Certified Rewild gardens protect wildlife and create critical habitat, helping to connect our wild spaces and providing a climate resilient landscape for generations to come.

Garden Certification

Private Lands Restoration

Residents interested in large-scale restoration projects on their properties may inquire about contract-grown local native plants and creative solutions to restore working lands.

Private Lands Restoration

FAQs

The Calscape Garden Planner is a great place to start. Enter your zip code and you can explore hundreds of beautiful native plant options that are appropriate for your specific microclimate. Calscape Garden Planner
If you’re in Ojai, check out our list of what we grow in our nursery to see what is native to our watershed. We collect all our seed on our preserves, so you can be sure you’re preserving local genetics and getting plants that are best adapted to our area.
The OVLC Nursery uses best practices to collect local native seed. Plants are available at our bi-annual plant sales. For orders of 100 plants or more, we offer contract growing, reach out to rewild@ovlc.org for more information.
Other local native plant retail nurseries
Theodore Payne Foundation, Sun Valley CA
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
Matilija Nursery, Moorpark CA
We don’t currently have the capacity to do garden consultations. We are working with the Theodore Payne Foundation to certify Native Plant Landscapers here in the valley, so stay tuned for our first cohort graduating in March 2024.
If you are looking to do a large-scale restoration project on private land, reach out to rewild@ovlc.org.
Ojai residents have made great strides in removing thirsty lawns and non-native plants from their landscaping, but more remains to be done if we are to meet the water challenges of the future. California native plants don’t just “tolerate” drought, they evolved with it. It’s in their DNA. And speaking of DNA, when you buy watershed-specific, hyper-local plants (like those grown in the OVLC Nursery), you are conserving our specific local genetics, something you can’t get anywhere else.
We have around 200 bird species, 64 bee species, and 168 moth and butterfly species, all of which depend on native plants for survival. 90% of plant-eating insects are specialists, meaning they need the native plants that they co-evolved with to survive4. Without insects, we have no birds, and without birds…well, who wants to live in a world without birds? Creating habitat in our gardens connects us to our surrounding wild landscapes and increases the likelihood of survival for our precious local fauna.
Yes! Check out these helpful links to learn more about gardening with natives:
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
Bloom! California
California Native Plant Society
International Network for Seed-Based Restoration
Native plants prefer to be planted a specific way for best root development and water infiltration. Watch this video from the Theodore Payne Foundation for a quick look at the best practices for planting your new native plants.