Guerrilla (Not Gorilla) Conservation with Shalaco from SF in Bloom

Hello and welcome to Golden State naturalist a podcast for anyone who's ever wondered how did those California poppies end up blooming in that vacant lot. I'm Michelle Fullner. And today I'll be talking about just that with Shalaco from SF in Bloom, you'll hear all about his unconventional efforts to protect pollinators while bringing more beauty and color back into our cities and neglected areas. And if you looked at the title of this episode, and you were like, but what is gorilla conservation? Are we talking about gigantic furry Silverback apes? We are not. Here's a definition for you. According to Oxford languages, this term gorilla is referring to actions or activities performed in an impromptu way, often without authorization. And that is exactly what Calico does with SF in bloom, he spreads native wildflower seeds in an effort to restore habitat that will protect and conserve our native California pollinators. Before we get to that, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. You can do that by hitting the little plus sign in the top right corner if you're listening on Apple podcasts. And while you're there, you can also rate or review the show which helps more people discover it by keeping it active in the podcast charts. If you want even more golden state naturalist you can become a patron for just $4 a month. With that membership. You get audio and video extras from my interviews in the field behind the scenes information about how the podcast is made and what's coming up next and more. That helps me pay for things like necessary tech to make a podcast and transportation costs for getting to and from interviews, which are now happening all across the state. Eventually I'd love to move to releasing episodes weekly instead of every other week and Patreon is the most direct way to help me make that happen. You can find me on Patreon at patreon.com/michelle Fullner. That's Michelle with two L's and Fullner is fu L L N E R you can also find me on social media at Golden State naturalist on both Instagram and Tiktok. My website is www dot Golden State naturalist.com. But now let's get to the episode because I cannot wait for you to hear from Shalaco you may already know him from his videos on Instagram and Tiktok where he has 246,000 followers. You may have seen him either in person or in his videos riding around San Francisco on a one wheel in a bee suit spreading native wildflower seeds with his partner Phoenix. In stark contrast to my typical interviews, climbing over rocks and through forest we met up in calicoes and chanting Victorian house in San Francisco got settled on a couch instead of a log and had a great conversation about the importance of native plants things people say when they see you when wheeling through a city and obesity what it means to democratize nature and gardening and what each of us can do to make the planet and our neighborhoods a little bit better. You can see a video of some of our conversation by following SF and bloom on Instagram or Tiktok. Without further ado, let's hear from Shalaka about gorilla conservation and I don't mean the primates on Golden State naturalist.

S

We're just gonna sit like this. I think that pillow behind you can use a little less guy lots adjustment. Yeah. Careful. It's got its cactus. Oh,

I'm not gonna lie. I actually hesitated for a second when he told me to be careful. But you might offense normally in my interviews, there could totally be a snake or something.

S

I like you know, soft things that look like sharp things.

My couch has cactus pillars on it. Yeah. Once we got settled in, I wanted to know a little bit more about the way that Shalaka and Phoenix approached conservation. What is SF and bloom? What do you guys do?

S

Right, so about a year ago, myself in Phoenix kicked off SF in Bloom. And it's the place where we share our knowledge and passion about plants. So Phoenix she operates green earth gardeners is a sustainable landscaping company. I run chelco Studios, a creative production studio, we're both passionate about plants. So it's a space where we explore that knowledge and passion. And the response we've gotten from the community has just been overwhelming, especially around just you know, all bringing innovative concepts based on her formal education and knowledge around plants. And so just spreading native wildflower seeds with a parmesan cheese shaker light like so. We're not the first to go out and do native urban conservation. But we have inspired 1000s if not hundreds of 1000s of people to go you know, invest in their community ecology and support their local ecosystems

for sure. Because you're not maybe the first to do it, but maybe the first ones to do it and be suits.

S

I mean, that was that was that was just, you know, that's a bold statement. I don't know. You know, you're well Come to we were invited by someone in the community to throw on a bee suit, you should do this in a bee suit. So we did you know, why not? And that, as silly as it is, it creates this approachability and excitement around it where people want to know why I'm dressed as a bee. People want to know what's going on. And people just, it sends them over the top to see, you know, oh, there's this person there one wheeling, oh, and they're contributing to the environment. Oh, and they're dressed as a bee is like kind of sends them over the top right. Where, you know, a brings this passionate excitement, I think that's needed to help make a change to help steer things more in the right direction.

Right. And I think what I really like about that is that it's so accessible. You know, I think that having a silly costume is just welcoming, you know, and everybody feels instantly comfortable with that. And they're like, what I can ask a question, right? Like, I can ask a question to somebody in a bee suit. And also, I don't have to get my PhD in this before I can start to do something about it. So I like the accessibility factor.

S

Definitely. That's been something that's been important to us, this is the like Little Hipster. And so you know, it's just a little one out shaker filled with, you know, California poppies, or the variety Maritima.

So Shalaka actually gave me one of these little hipster shakers, and I was so excited about it, I took it to work with me, I'm a public school teacher, and I gave it to the kids in my garden club and just told them to go crazy, like in areas that are hard to reach by the mower. And so there's just weeds growing there, and they just shook seeds all over the place, we had so much fun, there's going to be a video of that on my social media in the next couple of days. If it's not there already, by the time you hear this,

S

and you can give this to a kid. And even if they're pre speech level, you can say this makes that and show them the flowers. This makes that. And it just shows how universal I think that excitement about the magic of life that this little pellet of seed, this little seed pellet can then grow into a flower and make more. There's something innately and universally amazing about that, that people can connect over.

And so I was gonna ask too, because I was looking at like your mission statement about how what's important too, is that idea that goes with accessibility of democratizing nature and democratizing gardening. Like, can you just explain a little more about what you mean, when you say that?

S

Yeah, I suppose what it means is that, you know, everyone can have a vote in, you know, nature, and everyone can have accessibility to it. You know, and there's, you know, sometimes people are like, Oh, well, did you get consent to do this? It's like, I think it's interesting that people would, you know, want consent to do conservation work in public or neglected spaces. Meanwhile, there's ecological disasters, nobody asks consent for those. I think if we sit waiting around to get permission or following the traditional ways, you know, that's going to Gob things up. Because clearly, like we've seen the UN report on climate change, we know that like best case scenario, is the worst thing we've ever seen. So really, it's like how do we make taking action, and thinking globally, acting locally and make it accessible? And so you know, what we do is we tell our story and what we do, and we condense it into social media clips, that then people can share our passion and sort of see the process, but have that instant gratification, and then have that seed planted and then are educating each other on the importance of native non invasive beneficial plants.

The really cool thing about this is that Shala co said that he'll see comments from many different languages across the world where people are having this conversation about the importance of planting native and remember that planting native depends on where you live. So the species of flowers that you might find is going to depend on what naturally occurs in an area or what is indigenous to that area. And planting what occurs naturally in an area supports all of the local pollinators and other invertebrates, which in turn supports an entire food web.

S

In California, we have like 1600 native bee species alone, you know, the Western Monarch Butterfly declined 99.9% According to the Xerces Society in 2021, one in four native bee species in North America is reportedly in decline. And so we see that we're in an extinction event, we see that like species are struggling. It's sometimes I hear that it's overwhelming, like what can I do? And so it's just You know, we do our best to make it fun, accessible for people who think they may not have enough time or money or knowledge or whatever to help, like to help be aware, share the passion and you know, find a way that they can at least steer the ship a little bit more on the right direction. Sure,

absolutely. And so for people who are, you know, learning about this for the first time, what do you think is kind of the most accessible thing that they can do? What is the easiest way entry level to get involved? Yeah.

S

So how we approach that is to, you know, we made shakers for California, that are just generally native non invasive shakers, because, you know, we would we started by just grabbing wildflowers off the shelf, and then going and like spreading around our neighborhoods. But as we looked into it, these were beneficial. They weren't invasive in our area, but there was a higher standard that we could go to. So to make it accessible, we've started packaging up ones for California that have different from like the Sierras, think, a higher elevation mix. And then we have a central California, and then a Bay Area blend to have more like hyperlocal mixes. And so we're working on having just at least nationally being able to cover, you know, oftentimes it's broken down into five regions. But you know, it's as simple as we try make accessible by offering a product that helps people get to that, you know, solution and can trust that we're helping them find the beneficial flowers for their area. But if you want to do it yourself, we compiled resources, and basically starts with just understanding like, what is a native plant? What's an indigenous versus in endemic plant? What are invasive plants? Why is that important to know?

Okay, here are some definitions for you from the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Connecticut. They say a native plant is a plant that is part of the balance of nature that has developed over hundreds or 1000s of years in a particular region or ecosystem. So you might say a plant is native to California because it has been found there for 1000s of years, then an endemic plant is a plant that is only found in a specific area. For example, you might say a plant is endemic to California, like the Blue Oak, because the Blue Oak isn't found anywhere except California. So it's a California endemic. And then an invasive plant is a plant that is both non native and able to establish on many sites grow quickly and spread to the point of disrupting plant communities or ecosystems. So basically, it's a non native plant that is harmful to the native ecosystem. There is so much great information left in this interview, including some great tips on gorilla conservation from Shalaka, as well as some good stories of his so stay tuned, there's just going to be a short break.

And now back to the interview. Right? And like what would you say is the benefit because you were saying before, it's like, you know, you can get these general pollinator seed packs. You see them all over, you can get it at Home Depot, you know what I mean? What's the benefit of getting the more locally native words over those,

S

right? So you know what we recommend, like if if you want to just do it yourself, you go get whatever dispenser method you want. We like shakers, find something that speaks to you. And then we mix them with organic sterilized rice halls. That just spaces the seeds apart so you don't over plant it. And then we recommend like a native pollinator mix. And so that's nice because you get a variety of flowers and you see what's successful. Of course, if you're planting in your own yard, you can plant like whatever you want. But like you know what's what's the first like one thing I read recently was someone who was waking up to this and and learning more they were like, I really love this flower right? When I learned about it turns out it's invasive. I'm like, Well, what harm can be doing in my yard? Well, then you might have they were, they were explaining that they found out that birds would then come and then be dispersing the seeds. So well, it's well behaved in your yard, it may be going on and doing who knows what out there. And so, you know, like, a lot of the times, you're like, Oh, well, what's the harm in that, and so it's just, you know, ecology is complex. And so, the amazing thing is, you're always gonna have opportunity to learn more about it. But basically, you know, like, in, a lot of the times, European flowers are mixed in with wildflower mixes, and they're not all made the same. And so something like a bachelor button that looks you're like, Oh, it's beautiful, unique flower comes in nice blue, somebody's pink, but it's invasive. And I think like three or four different states. And so that's not something you want to go throwing around all willy nilly. And so, you know, what's the impact of that? It's a plant that can take over a habitat, crowd out resources crowd to other plants, you know, and there's some girl gardeners who may not even realize that they're gorilla gardeners, like, for example, people who go and feed birds, and they go into the scatter bird seat, and they often aim for like the tree planters. Well, those are all unless you got non germinating bird seed, you're, you're now guerilla gardening. And it's with the cheapest seeds that you can get, right? I could imagine someone who's going to a place where there's like birds and wanting to like feed the birds, you know, maybe they're even going to habitat or like a conservation space, spreading bird seed, and unknowingly be distributing invasive grasses that are going to have a real impact on the ecology and what's growing, they're sure. So it's like, people are going to be out there and doing that and planting. And so, you know, the way we say is, well, if we can help reach some of those people, and help them better understand and create a space for the community to educate each other, your there's gonna be, you know, tons of people who just are like, wait, I can plant things, right. So you know, finding a way to get ahead and get out there and meet them. And then, you know, you have tons of people pop up in the comments. And they're like, Yeah, I just went to the Dollar Tree and got like seeds, and you're like, great, wildflowers don't equal native wildflowers, here's where you can find resources to like educate. And that's sort of the trailhead for learning more, and lots of people are going to make mistakes. But I think that's where you start. And then from there, you learn. That's how that's how we learned and everyone, there was a point where you didn't know what the word for tree was, like, everyone has to enter in and learn somewhere. And so we do our best to meet people where they are at, and, you know, provide resources to help them along their journey.

What do you think they love the most about this is that it's so clear that there is just space for everyone. In this kind of activity, it doesn't matter how much you know, or what your background is, or where you're from, if you can get a few native wildflower seeds. This is something you can do, right? For sure. And it's cool that you do provide tools, like if somebody doesn't know where to start, it's like, well buy a shaker, you know, and like, here's something or here's, here's some way that you can, or here's the kind of seeds that you can use, you know, so, so that's fantastic.

S

I think it's just important to like, encourage people. And I think that encouragement, which is works a lot better than criticism. Yeah.

I mean, you don't want to shut people down, right? Like if you shut people down, then they're not going to participate. And then there's, you know, some BS without lunch, right?

S

Don't just stoke the fire, like, right, how can we like stoke the fire, but like, we also just do our best to have our ear open to the community. We just take the time to sit and listen to the community and hear what's important and then start you know, looking into it when we when we started we had like a Kinect can have Rene Zmax and like, Alexis Nicole, black forger, showed up and was like, Yay, flowers, you know, but like Rene Zmax inexplicably contains like European flowers, and I'm like, gosh, yeah. Wait, does it wait. So Okay, where can I get native flowers? Okay, and then so then we start sourcing native flowers, it's like, but none of them have rice hauls. So we get those. And then it's like, now we'll put that in a shaker and then people are like, I want it to and you're like I guess we have a shaker company now. Cuz I bought it all in bulk and oh my god. Now I have using you know, and then people like Andy showed up and they bought like three pounds of seats. I'm like, I've never bought three pounds of seats. I need five pounds of seats. Yeah. And so then, you know, people are like, I spent like $300 in seats. I'm like, I don't even I don't even know it's Out of pocket. And it's, I've spent a lot.

Yeah. As somebody who likes to garden, I can definitely I have a ridiculous amount of seeds for like vegetable seeds, you know? Yeah, that's there's not there's no,

S

that's when you start running out place at your own space to have plants and then you're like well that that place burned down, you know, seven years ago and they haven't put anything there sense and they went and they got rid of all the flowers that showed up from the seed bank,

when Shalaka mentions a seed bank, he's talking about something that's also sometimes called the soil seed bank, which is according to Wikipedia, the natural storage of seeds, often dormant within the soil of most ecosystems. So it's just kind of the seeds that are naturally laying around, they'll stay dormant, they're often for a super long time, and then under the right conditions, they'll germinate. So

S

let's, let's go add some flowers there,

right? Well, it's like star thistle there now. So like, let's just throw

S

I think that's like part of it is a lot of there's people who don't have access to the dirt to the yard to the space. And part of is it becomes accessible to them. They can they don't need to have a yard necessarily, to contribute. And there's places where it's just obvious that, you know, you don't want to do this on places that have land management, on places where there's like farming or agriculture, because you don't know how that's going to interfere. But there's plenty of places that are like clearly neglected, where you're only going to make a positive impact,

right? And yeah, I think what's cool too, is that you have a lot of people who, like you say, don't have access to a patch of dirt, right. And so for a lot of them, it may never enter their minds to garden, right. And so it's kind of cool, because it opens up a world, you know, and it puts a fresh idea in someone's head of like, again, that idea of welcoming people, you know, like, to a space where maybe they've never been truly welcome to before.

S

Yeah, we're seeing ourselves very much at the entrance, when people are just getting a taste for that excitement. I think that's a powerful place to be. And so, you know, meeting people at the very like beginning of the entrance into this. And you know, I was watching the Bill Nye movie last night, he said that they found it was up until the age of 10, that you had to get people passionate about science for them to like, be into science. And so thinking about from that approach of like, can we get you maybe it's not as dire as a cut off of like 10 years old, because there's people of all ages getting excited about what we do. But I think the earlier you can plant that seed, the better. And the more time they have to accumulate knowledge and experience and initial gardening is a lot of failure is failing a lot. And so you to create content that engages people, you want to show them the cream of the crop of success. That's what's going to stand out. Yeah, but then also not want them to get discouraged when they inevitably fail.

Right? And yeah, you mentioned I was like, What about like germination rates, and you were like,

S

I'm the worst, I probably am the least successful, I probably have the least successful germination rate. But I also probably have the highest I don't know where to get like stats on this. But I have to imagine I'm up there with, you know, people have planted like the most native plants sure, like San Francisco, right. Or like the amount of biodiversity that I've seen that I've just brought to like my street alone. It's like, you know, it's a numbers game. So I just put myself out there a lot, and you learn what succeeds and what fails. And you know, you get the nice thing is you get surprised by it. There

is such a bigger lesson to take away from this, when I know something isn't likely to give me fantastic results, I'll sometimes feel defeated and just keep doing scrolling. But what I take from what Shalaka was saying is that if we get out there and do something and keep trying at whatever that thing may be, we can start to notice patterns of what works and experience this little burst of joy when something succeeds where it really shouldn't have. And I also think that just the act of trying in the face of bad odds is in itself meaningful. The fact that you try is an act of resistance against the desire to give up and it almost doesn't matter sometimes if a thing works out the way we wanted it to or not because just getting out there reinforces the idea that living life is worth the effort and sometimes leads to unexpected opportunities or relationships or even just getting sunshine on our skin. Okay, back to seats. There's all these areas and I think it's cool because there's areas like close to my house, and it's just like a field, right? And I'm always kind of discouraged. I've thought before about like spreading some seeds there but I'm like they know it. You know what I mean? Or like ah, but it's like if you if you don't spread seeds there then they'll never have a chance

S

Yeah, to grow. So yeah, I mean, you want to start with like first it's like determining like, Okay, you want to like look into a little bit. I have people being like, oh, there's this amazing meadow near my place. I'm Like, yeah, is it like a prairie habitat is it like a managed or protected or, you know, piece of land that already has its own biodiversity. So that's like the first thing you want to check in with, or we hear from farmers who are like, Oh, we have like the hardest time with looping or we have the hardest time with this or like, stuff gets mixed in with our grass, and then our livestock can't eat it. So there's like a lot of things to be aware of. And of course, on the internet, it's like, you have to simplify everything, like reach people. But when you do find those challenging places, but you get a foot in, it's so satisfying, even just for one and this is where what I refer to as like rage planting, or like vengeance planting where you've like, planted three years ago, Digi was like, all the thing and all the gardeners use it. But what happens is it compresses into solid layer, and then moisture can't get in and plants can't get up. And so like all these it looks like cat litter, a lot of the time that like cream DG, like nothing grows in there. But then I like I saw one Cistercian we had like, grow and then somebody put a berm around. It was like, oh my god, we got something in there. And then you know, I think the distortion probably passed and then I just like threw in a handful poppies there and then the poppies start. And that's, you know, when you start to get that one or like they'll come through, they hit it with the weed whacker. But then it goes back, right, you're like, Yeah, but it's very Buddhist practice of like, you can't st life is hard, you can't get attached to the plants. It's you can't help but getting attached to the plants, right. And you just have to what I do is I just focus on planting so much that by the time they sprout, it's a surprise. And then you're just like, Oh, it's just like a pleasant surprise. But then even you have like well intentioned people who will go and say oh, what native plants look like and they'll weed out the bed and they'll like weed out the native plants and you're like, you left the invasive grasses weeded out the beneficials here's an education. So we just look at like education. It's all opportunity

right? These I don't even remember who I was talking to who said that but they they said that they would put in like a plant like California fuchsia or something like that and plant it in like a landscaped area. And then they would put a little flag that was

S

like Sacramento food forest so maybe it was

sidenote Sacramento food forest is absolutely fantastic. I always learned so much about California native plants and native bees from his posts and he's also hilarious so give him a follow if you haven't already

S

he's like He gets so into it he goes out in the middle of the night it's like definitely some like crime pays button he doesn't vibes there brings that energy and like that was the first crime pays botany doesn't video I saw was he was going in Oakland. He was out there planting like trees that he had grown from seed or like saplings, and then going out and planting them and mulching them and showing visit a here's the Department of unauthorized forestry oh nine, right, he brings so much more plant and geography and biology and geology knowledge and so many more swear words than I do. But then Sacramento food force is also like, you know, similar, and he goes out there and he's like planning stuff in the middle of the night. He's like he is Paulo, orange flag in there. And the landscapers will just leave it alone, you know, just little protests. They're just they're, they're really like passionate and driven. And I think a lot of the creators you see at the forefront of this are they're hyper fixating in positive ways, on channeling their excitement about things into like making change in difference.

Right? Well, and if that even just educate some people to like, think about when they landscaped our yard, right, like what they put

S

in. It's been amazing. So we've had our friend over gardening Easter is like we're planning more native plants, because we're inspired by you. We've had people drop in the comments like I sometimes like to visit golf courses. I'm like, you know, this guy showed up in the comments. He's like, I managed the golf courses, landscaping, and we're bringing in more native and beneficial plants because we were inspired by you. And so that, you know, is really been where things have been successful for us is is planting that seed, and not just about planting plants for your own sake, but being aware of their larger role in an ecosystem in the ecology.

So why are native plants so important? Honestly, this is such a big question that deserves its own episode, but the short answer is that native plants do the best job supporting the most diverse array of wildlife in any given area. Riya they're also amazing to grow because they require less water and aren't dependent on fertilizer and pesticides to thrive like non native species are this is because they're adapted to the natural moisture levels, soil types and pests that exist within their range.

S

And getting people to be considerate of that and educate themselves and get excited about we're seeing this transition from colonial landscaping thirsty turf grass lawns, to people being excited about beneficial habitat gardens. And so that's where we started was we're like, Okay, we'll you know, teach a class on like converting your lawn to beneficial habitat garden. People like cool, we're like, we can show people how to install drip irrigation to have like, the most water efficient way of watering their yard. These people be excited about that. Right? And they're like, cool, like, I'm gonna dress as a bee and spread native wildflowers on one wheel. Awesome.

3

Okay, that crowd people want crowd favorite. All right. That's amazing. It didn't

miss didn't miss right? Well, but then you do the bee suit thing. And then more people go to your website and you're like, Oh, hey, I want to convert my lawn Right? Like it gets the message

S

out. I think it's a trailhead. And then we are there to like meet people wherever they are in their planning journey. So like our the whole way that we approach it was like, Hey, if you are think you're too broke, too busy, you don't have enough light, you don't have enough space, we're gonna share with you ways that you can have bring nature and plants into your life. And so, you know, we live in a dark, cold Victorian over here, you know, you describe this as, how did you describe it altered? Like it's a or Conservatory of flower. Yeah,

this room was like the Conservatory of Flowers for sure.

S

Yeah. So you know, and that's done with grow lights in classical fixtures that look aesthetically pleasing, that aren't smart plugs. So that, you know, that was kind of the approach is like, hey, let's make it simple and easy for people to bring nature and and find innovative ways to do it for ourselves and use that to find the modality and then share that modality with people. This is the modality that struck with people the most was around volunteer urban conservation.

Yeah, for sure. And do you have any good stories? Like when you're out there in the bee suit? Do you ever just have like people say crazy things? Or do

S

you have everyone driving past is going to yell like be pawns at us.

I looked up some bee puns. And let me just tell you, there is a really no end to the ways that you can take the to be verb and then just kind of tack on an extra eat and call it good. Also, there are a lot of other words that sound like pollen. So be puns, not all they're cracked up to be.

S

And like we've had people, like I saw you over there, and then I pulled over and stopped and then they they're like, want to know what you're doing. Yeah. And that is the beginning of the conversation. I've now someone who is like walking down the street, thinking about whatever has now stopped. And they're engaging you in a conversation and they want to learn about what you're doing and why. And it just, it just ignites like an excitement. And we've done like so many interviews, and those are always like an amazing experience. Because when you sit down with the journalists, you get to see one on one, how how you've ignited this, like passion. And like when we talked to your own news, green, you know, the journalist from there was like, her story is about how she's like Doom scrolling in the middle of the night. Sure. And then comes across the Tiktok and is like, Oh my God, and then like binge dives in, and then the next day goes out by seeds, like, you know, researches it finds the right ones. And then it's like thinking about where they're going to plant them. And that's just I think, if you're gonna move a big ship, you need to do a lot of little turns. Yeah, right. It moves a lot. It moves gradually.

So much of it is just that raising that general public awareness level, right?

S

And it's in the last year. Plus, I would say, I've seen it explode exponentially. Like I never thought a plant posts, would you make the front page of reddit, right? And then you look and there's plant communities and I'm in most of the plant communities. But the space that was had in that conversation and how people showed up in there like they start by criticizing because the person who reposted the video didn't mention that in planning like native and beneficial plants, and they did attribute but it was like that doesn't get the upvotes or reverent or snarky comment that gets up votes, right. So people lead with like the concerning criticism, which is really we just see as caring. Right, right. Yeah, they're caring and communicating. And then other people went they sniffed us out. And then they're like, no, they're planning native benefits. And then the original person who's like, like, top comment then edits their comment to be like, I'm not criticizing this person. And they're also like doing it, right? I'm just saying like, and then you go through and you read, like, all the conversations, and you're like this is this post created a space to have the ecological and conservation plant conversation about how we can all be conservationists, how we can, we can all be invited to play a positive role. And, you know, it's such a major thing, that you really have to have an intimate, you really have to have local knowledge to, like, get into it, even if you're following a general set of principles.

Right. And I think it's interesting, too, you had mentioned the concept of responsibility before, right? Like, like, it's not only that people are welcome to do it. But like, what do you see as just the responsibility of humans? You know, what I mean, like, at this point?

S

Well, what I would say is, traditionally, humans are like very human first human centric, that's just humans are going to be humans. And you're not gonna get them to like, probably not going to stop burning fossil fuels, you're not gonna get us to, like, make major changes that like impact lifestyle, but there is it does feel like there's a change in the tide. And what that the, to me the the general tide change I see is that initially, lawns were like a sign of status and like, well, there is like a practicality about it. But it was like, it was all about bringing in exotic things because they look different from where you are, it serves you and it's like, even cities are just largely like people first. A lot of people consider themselves like separate from like, animals in nature. And you see a switch and that tide, right, we're now people are looking at how do we bring more nature into cities? Yeah, and that is the benefits of that. And then that people are are wanting to change and convert their lawns not from this colonial aesthetic of thirst trap turfgrass yard by bringing in native and beneficial plants, have more drought tolerant have something that's like the purpose is that it uses less water, or the purposes that it's a habitat or you can certify your lawn as a wildlife habitat. But their overall there's a tide shifting, and it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing, you can keep your turf grass center of your lawn and have like, a different sides or aspects of it that then help you know serve the other purpose if you need that function.

I've heard this concept described as instead of thinking of your lawn as wall to wall carpet, think of it as like a throw rug, and you can just put it where you actually need it surrounding it with native plants.

S

That's the shift that we've been seeing. It's kind of like each spark that ignites then connects with more people, more people see it. Yeah, so Phoenix converted a lawn to a native habitat garden. And so, you know, you you plant some medium to mature plants, like one gal to five gals, so that you have something that is, you know, consistent, right, right, because wildflowers are going to be seasonal, and then the you can plant the wildflowers by seed it's more economical. And then you have your drip irrigation that you've hopefully laid before all of this or you can just continue zero escaping rely on the winter rains. And then when the delivery driver would come and drop off the food delivery. They're supposed to send a photo of the delivery, they would send a photo of the yard and they said that they could literally hear all the yard just a buzz with bees, which scares some people because they think of European honeybees. Now, from my understanding. I'm not an entomologist, but the native California bees don't have the 1600 of don't have stairs. That's a broad statement. Like yeah, look into that but you don't have you don't have to be scared of of the Stingers.

So I did a little bit of digging on this and female native bees do typically have stingers, but because so many of them are solitary, they're not defending a hive and so they're very unlikely to actually use their stinger also the smaller species, their sting isn't big enough to actually penetrate human skin. And also no male bees have stingers native or otherwise.

S

And then the allergy the people strong allergies are like, Oh my poor allergies, just like your thing. These are not the allergens you're looking for those are cedar oak, like big pollen chestnuts. Those are what's gonna like inflame your it's not a little wildflower pollen. Maybe try some local honey. I hear that helps a lot. But people they go and they convert their lawn and then you see how much that one stands out but what if you Got two people on your block to convert it or five people or get a stretch of people or create a pollinator pathway, a pollinator Boulevard? Yes, convert like Dolores street into like a pollinator Boulevard. And there are people who are actively working on those things, it's

one of the powerful things about when more than one person starts to convert their lawn into native plants is that then that can actually become a corridor for wildlife to be able to move around, and it increases the area where they can live. So if you are ever able to convert your lawn, it's always great if you can talk a neighbor into it, too. Yeah. And so I was gonna say, I think that segues to like one of the things that was rattling around in my head, because as somebody who lives in a city, and who also has an eye for design, and that and art and beauty, like what do you see as like, what do you wish cities could be in terms of that interface, right, between wild things in nature and being human friendly? Yeah.

S

So this ties into our mission, because what we're working on is finding other people are doing amazing things and connecting with them and helping highlight what they're doing. So sharing the love and attention that we've been getting, because there's lots of people doing amazing things. So like in San Francisco, we have friends of the urban forest, and they plant trees, and that's great. Their approach I see is kind of mono is monoculture. They plant like it's one tree per one tree. Well, you know, permaculture, seven layers of the forest, you have various layers of plants. So we the steps I've seen, like in the right direction is there's tree planting, there's improvement and hardscaping. There's rain gardens, so people are sinking water from the rain into our aquifers instead of mixing it with sewage. Right? That makes sense, right? Their plant choices just over the last few years. And you know, granted, I'm just primarily in San Francisco. So you know, I'm not sure how much is part of like an overall trend. But I do see them making better plant choices. What I would like to see is an incorporation of more native and beneficial plants into cities, also like the thinking of it's just think about wildlife and nature and what those things needs are and work on incorporating them. And sometimes it's trial and error and figure out how you can incorporate it more like can you you know, we have large? Like I'd never thought that the monarch butterfly would be at risk of extinction. Right? So like, what can you do? Well, it's like the four major variables impacting them are climate change, okay, so that's causing irregularity in the weather. I'm not sure how we can tackle that besides like addressing the overall climate crisis, then you have habitat loss.

Habitat loss is the main reason why so many people are planting milkweed in their yards. Now. Milkweed is the only place where a monarch butterfly will lay its eggs. So simple things like that are ways of helping support insect populations,

S

then you have pesticide use. Those are like the major impactors on beneficial insects. So stop using nicotine noids reduce the use of pesticides. And we have a video with Dwayne Sparkman who he worked at the Westin in Maui, and he all his landscaping, they did this four star hotel with that amazing emerald grass. All of it was done free of pesticides. And that's because of a liability approach that they wanted to reduce the liability. And if you didn't have the pesticides, then you eliminated the risk of exposure to guests employees. Yeah. But then he created the modality that she demonstrated not only could it be used, but you reduced your overhead and you got better results. So short answer is like find those modality find innovative modalities that help us increase the habitat that helped us decrease the pesticide and then create some reliability for these for you leave some space, the other things and that benefits us it's only going to benefit us in having because we have strengthened biodiversity. Those are like the primary things if like cities could incorporate like a 10% native and beneficial planting.

I tried to look this up to see if there are any cities in California already requiring these kinds of ratios of native plants to non native plants in plantings. I couldn't find anything and so either it's not happening or it's not super obvious on the internet. There are a lot of laws on the books about not disturbing native plants or not removing them particularly in delicate areas or protected areas. But I didn't see anything about new plantings like Shalaka was saying That would be a really great direction for cities to move,

S

if you know if they can look at testing out doing one test program where they don't rely on pesticides, and they find alternative ways and then you'll, you know, focus on soil health focus on those kinds of things. And I think there's just a certain amount of innovation that comes with that. And so, you know, we see a bit, we see a bit of that, and sometimes it just takes a passionate person who goes out and does it. And like I was hearing an interesting story. He was to Maven, Tucson, Arizona, it was like illegal to do what he was doing. But they had an issue where how they built the town, like all the rain, the roof, rain, runoff in the street, rain, runoff flooded all the streets. And then so he went in, and he like, without permits went in and like took up the concrete to create pathways for the water to then go get sunk in with native, you know, with plants. And then he created these big plant pathways that then created cooling areas and sunk the water. And now the city is incorporating the ideas he dazing Yeah, and in the beginning of what he was doing was not right, like was not legal, or by the books or anything, but sometimes you just need that innovator to step out and like try it out. And he show what's possible and ask permission ask forgiveness, yeah, permission. And then, you know, people learn from that

people have learned from it so much in fact that Tucson is actually offering subsidies for rainwater harvesting. So I found an article on resilience.org that says in 2012, the city's water utility, tucson water began offering rebates to its residential customers to subsidize installation of rainwater catchment systems, both to divert water onto landscaping, and store it in cisterns later, it expanded the program to include grants and loans to help low income households harvest rainwater later in the article, it talks about how the water has to fall soon before you actually need to use it. I'm not sure if it will work in California, because we get most of our rainfall in the winter. And then we have long, dry summers, whereas in Tucson, they actually get a lot of their rain in the summer close to when they will need it. However, we have such smart creative people, I'm sure we could figure out a way around that problem. Right, who's with me? And then the other important piece of the puzzle is communication with the powers that be

S

and then it's really just show how it's in their best interest and learn how to speak their language. Right, where they're coming from, what their values are, is that a spreadsheet? A bottom line of a spreadsheet is a liability. Is it a you know, so in San Francisco, biodiversity is listed as one of the initiatives passed by a supervisor? Okay, supervisors, what does that mean, right? We don't know. I don't maybe they have an idea about what that means. But go find that out, find out what programs are out there. What initiatives are out there and then propose something,

right? Yeah. And that actually, I was going to ask you too, about systemic support? Like, do you see any initiatives that you wish or like something that you wish would get support from local government or state or whatever level?

S

Yeah, so that's a work in progress for us. And it's kind of like our pie in the sky. Yeah, area, like where we see our role is to find people who have that passion about plants and find plant stewards, and then find opportunities, and then connect them. So they they may already exist. So for example, Caltrans manages like onramps, right? And so like we went, we like planted up in onramp. But then they come and they cover it in like wood chips. And so you're like, Okay, we're just fighting against each other. So and then we, we go, and we talk to someone in the city, and they're like, Okay, well, here's who manages it. First thing is identify who manages the project, or the land, and then, you know, talk around, find out what like, so there are actual programs, where people can steward those spaces and get access and consent or permission, you know, what, whatever to like, access and maintain the space. And so really, what we're focused on is like finding those things, and then connecting people with them. And so, you know, our big ones are, okay, let's find out who's like managing land and see, like, can we help turn them on to some new modalities and practices that might like benefit them and also, like, support our mission and do good, you know, locally? And then is there are one that we're really interested in is like tree after care, tree maintenance. Everyone's excited about planting trees, you know, but then meanwhile, you're you might have tree deaths, outpacing tree plantings, but the funding comes attached to like, oh, well, we fund you per planting and then they don't have the resources for aftercare, right? So like, where we're what we're really interested in is like, knowing what programs are out there because we don't know them all highlighting amazing programs to make help. other people become more aware of them, finding out where their pain points are, and then seeing if we can collaborate on creating an opportunity where say, like Friends of the urban forest, can you know that we can bring in a group of people who, you know, we show like tree maintenance and aftercare and the people who might show up and be upset and protests when you have to cut a tree down? Or why have we got all this people show up and learn tree maintenance and aftercare to help go around in in under five minutes, you can do the preventive maintenance, sometimes that will prevent a tree from needing to get cut down from having the leader grown to a building, or too far into the street mistaking things sticks have been hit by cars. So like, can we connect those things, and get the people who are passionate about it to help where funding and all of that can only go so far, and so find out where that stops, or whatever the pain points are, and see if you can connect it with the community that's really passionate about it. And then, you know, rinse and repeat and sort of listen to the people what what people want to be involved in and, and see what's already there, and then find where there's like opportunities and sure, connect them. That's fine. Yeah,

our approach. I love this a lot, because I think that there are a lot of people out there who have energy and time to be able to help with things, but they don't always know the best direction to turn or how to get the training that they need to do the work that needs to be done or even entirely what kind of work needs to be done. So it's really helpful to connect people with the training and connect them with the volunteer opportunities that they might be looking for. Okay, next, I'm going to say something that only kind of makes sense. But Shalaka was nice. And he totally ran with it anyway. Yeah. And then you get this expanded knowledge, it kind of reminds me I don't have this connection is super random, but in Fahrenheit 451 At the end, where it's like each person has a book, right? Because they've burned all of the copies of the book and the knowledge is like held in a person, right? And then it becomes like that person's responsibility to spread that book.

S

Yeah. Well, that's what that's what we're really excited about is intergenerational knowledge and collaboration. And a lot of the times people who are doing really innovative stuff or just have a lot of plant knowledge and are invested in and doing projects are, tend to be older and less knowledgeable about social media. So if we can find people who like have knowledge and are doing amazing things, and help them tell their story, we can help elevate their, what they're doing by helping it reach a new audience, and spreading the knowledge and awareness and whatever their message is, or whatever they learned. And then also connecting people with, okay, you want to like garden, I don't need to like create a gardening project people are like, oh, you should go plant fruits and vegetables. It's like that sounds like a community gardening project. The point being that you can, that you can like connect people and I think there's a commonality there's a shared passion about plants and nature that everyone can connect with. And in a world where we have so much divisive and divisiveness I think it's really important to connect people to find our commonality and find our common ground and you know, see what blooms from there so if we can go and connect with like Judith from learner seeds,

I'm going to put a link to learner seeds in the shownotes because they have amazing varieties of California native seeds from grasses and wildflowers to shrubs and vines and actually even bulbs it is the coolest and Shalaka already did and SF in bloom video back in July so definitely check that out if you want to see what the learner seeds shop looks like and

S

then like help a whole new generation of people get like excited about what they're doing then you know, it's it's helping make that accessible and then people democratically can vote with their dollar or their time to go be like involved in those things go check them out

and different things will appeal to different people but if you get the message big enough then people can self sort in that way right like they can pick what they want

S

to get. So we've been building you know an email list and I think it's up to like 260 people are signed up where and then we're reaching out to organizations and mean like hey, we know we we want to help treat aftercare can we like organize a community workshop where you show people how to do the aftercare because if stuff trains you then you're like certified to go and do like the trimming or the you know, and we seek we see people who take it into their own hands so you can make expensive mistakes very fast. Yeah, when you just if you can see the cuts on the tree then it could probably wasn't done appropriately. A good arborist, you can't tell where they cut the tree.

When Shalaka was saying this, I was actually like, trying to be cool, but I was kind of squirming inside because I was thinking about this tree in my backyard that I completely butchered. I did such a bad job trying to prune this tree, I do not know what I'm doing. Anyways, I need to take a tree pruning class, sorry, little tree.

S

So but then, like, just connect those people, you know, we hear about it from other groups as like, you know, people get very passionate about trees being cut down was like, Whoa, let's find the place where you can make a difference and help prevent the tree from good. Yeah. And then like, Fine, you know, just sort of make our rounds and then find different groups who need a community lift, and then sort of like go in, do community lift, and then through that create a piece of content that helps share that story that then elevates the message and inspires more people to either get involved hands on or to do something similar,

right, sure. Or throw dollars at the right thing? Like support this group? Yeah, exactly. So I just have one last question for you. And it is just like, you know, you've been doing this for about a year now.

S

So we kicked off SFM bloom last year, but me and Phoenix have been planting since our like first date. Oh, nice. On our first first date. There was a my neighbor's citrus tree had been stolen in or during a rainstorm. Yeah, people steal citrus trees. And so I thought that was pretty lame. And I had already been kind of Robin hooding succulents finding succulents that were like, left discarded or like overgrown, or it's like overgrown. It's like harming the plant. And then you go plant it into a place where they had a plant that like died. And it's a similar you're like, Okay, you're into succulents here, like here, let's fill on this little thing. And then so we were on a date. And it was right after that tree was stolen. And then there was a tree Aloe had been like hit by a car and was just being bleached out in the sun and like a parking lot. So I took it, and we planted it in her yard. Oh, nice. And at first, she was actually like, a designer too. She does garden and landscape designs too. And she was like, Yeah, somebody planted a tree aloe. They're like, Oh, that's interesting. And she's like, Yeah, you know, she's just bummed about like, it wasn't her citrus tree. Like she's bothered about the plant she planted getting stolen. And then now it's like the size of a smart car. And then later, she's like, it's grown on me. Like it really fills in the space.

I just feel like only in San Francisco, can you get away with measuring things in Smart Car units? And what about it like now you've been doing it for a while, like, what about doing this either still like surprises you or blows your mind or still just takes your breath away?

S

I mean, right now it's that think globally act locally thing. So there's like the part that's just here, basically feeling like a Fae, like Artemis.

So Artemis in Greek mythology was not only the goddess of the hunt, but also of vegetation. And according to Britannica, she was the goddess of wild nature, who danced, usually accompanied by nips in mountains, forests, and marshes.

S

Now you walk around, you're like, Wow, all of these. There's always something in bloom all year round. And that's an impact I had and that is contagious. On the social media side is just like blows up. Like that's what my notifications look like, on any Yeah, that's like any given moment. Yeah. So that's like 4000 new followers, and like 638 comments, and they're all talking about wild. They're all talking about being inspired about plants and nature wanting to get involved in doing it too. And so that's like, really, Global Fire.

I just think it's really cool that in thinking globally and acting locally, Shalaka is also inspiring people globally to think locally, if that makes any kind of sense. Okay, I'm gonna let him sign us off. He was taking a video for his social media. So Shalaka was saying goodbye here.

S

So if you want to check out our full conversation, check out Michelle's podcast, the Golden State naturalist and we will see you in the next one.

Bye. had such a good time talking to Shala co after we got done talking, we went out and we actually checked out the street where he and Phoenix have been working so hard to plant all of these native seeds and they are just going crazy, it's beautiful. So make sure to go follow SF and bloom on Tiktok and Instagram if you don't already couple of other notes Shalaka mentioned to make sure to plant in the fall if possible. So you can throw seeds anytime of year and it contributes to a seed bank which you know stays there in the soil but if you plant in the fall Then the winter rains will come and the plants will have a much better chance of success it's also a great idea to look for areas that are not getting regularly mowed and areas where there's some kind of irrigation or some kind of water supply. Also, if you're listening to this and you're not from California, you might be like, hey, what about me? Well, there's lots of places where you can find seeds in your area so if you're from a different state, make sure to search the name of your state and then look for native plants or local seeds to your area and search for it that way or if you're from another country also make sure that you're looking within your specific region of your country because if your country is kind of big then there might be a lot of different regions and you might need to really make sure that you're getting seeds local to your area. Thankfully, there's a lot of online stores for seeds now so definitely just do some Googling about that also, if you enjoyed what you heard, please please please share with a friend share on your social media you have no idea how much that helps follow me at Golden State naturalist, tag me in your posts and share away and then at the end of the episode, I always say something interesting from my week and from this week it is that over the weekend, I got to go down to Inyo County which is on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and like a lot farther south from where I live and I went camping at a place called conglomerate Mesa and I had brought with me this new camp stove that I had never used before and I was like trying to act like I knew what I was doing and so I was putting the the top of the stove onto the fuel bottle and as I was putting it on there fuel just started spraying everywhere and I got older my hands and like a little bit on my clothes and thankfully people who actually know what they're doing came over and assisted me very quickly so so just thank you to Paul and Marjorie for that. Anyways, they showed me how to use my little campstove and everything was fine after that somebody even brought me a wipe to get the fuel off of my so maybe research your gear more than I did when you go camping. Okay, that's it i hope you enjoyed this episode and this chat was Shalaka I'll see you next time on Golden State naturalist bye

the song you just heard is called Ida know by grapes and you can find the link to that song as well as the Creative Commons license in the show notes. Bye