Earth Systems Science, Inc.

Second Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Trail Planting Effort

Dec 05, 2004

Twenty-two brave souls turned out in the cool, cloudy Culver City weekend weather to volunteer 3 hours to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Trail native planting effort. This was the second native planting effort on the trail. Half of the group participated in the first native planting effort during the Fall 2004 National Wildlife Federation Habitat Steward Volunteer training for the Baldwin Hills Conservancy.

The day started off under gray cloudy skies following early morning rain. Optimism reigned as the first 5 hardy volunteers hit the trail to weed around the native plantings from the October 2004 effort. Fall is the ideal time to put native plants into the ground. It is cooler, and the winter rains give the plants a good head start in getting established.

Wendy Talaro (Baldwin Hills Conservancy) organized the effort in cooperation with Earth Systems Science, Inc. (ESSI). It involved 10 Los Angeles Habitat Stewards (Elizabeth Chan, Gregory and Saifon Lee, Clifford Neuman, Cai Nghiem, Hui Feng Su, Wendy Talaro, Dominic Varona, Yancy Yap, Huihui Yuan), one Habitat Helper (Cynthia Guthrie), and 11 Pasadena City College Geography students and friends (Eun Seung Cheon, Sarah Clarke, Alvin Lau, Leilan Leverette, Fangfang Li, Qing Li, Jennifer Mavian, Danielle Riffenburgh, Qian Wang, Xiem Van, Miansing Zeng).

The group worked on slippery trails, forming a human chain to relay tools and plants along the lower end of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Trail. In the 3 hours of effort, more than 70 native plants got into the ground. (The first planting effort in October placed 30 native plants in the ground.) Due to various reasons, many of the plants had been purchased almost a year ago and were getting root bound in the pots. If they did not get into the ground, they were at risk of turning into native plant compost in the pots. Today?’s volunteer effort literally saved these plants worth several hundreds of dollars.

The goal was to place native plants along the trail in an effort to introduce and educate hikers about the native plants found in the Coastal Sage Scrub vegetative plant community. This is the native plant community that once dominated the Baldwin Hills area. Human impact due to oil drilling and settlement took its toll. But the loss was not only the native plants. Native animals species were also impacted with the loss of habitat. The planting strategy was to create a clustering of native plants near the start of the trail to create a ?“visual palette?” of native plants to show people what these hills used to look like in the past, explained Wendy Talaro.

The native planting efforts along the trail are also a demonstration of community service and volunteerism for the Baldwin Hills. ESSI is affiliated with the Expo Neighbors Environmental Group (ENEG), the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). ESSI?’s involvement in the Baldwin Hills originated with ENEG and NPCA while working on a Cultural Diversity program to connect under-represented groups to National Parks through visits and job preparatory training. About a year ago, ESSI and ENEG were contacted by the NWF to help introduce Gardening for Wildlife programs to the greater Los Angeles area. ESSI staff / volunteers undertook Habitat Host / Steward Volunteer training and conducted the first two Habitat Steward Volunteer training workshops in the Los Angeles area. Wendy Talaro was in the first cohort trained. She then introduced the Habitat Steward Volunteer training to the Baldwin Hills Conservancy where she worked as an Interpreter/Naturalist.

Wendy?’s efforts resulted in at least four different activities totaling about 289 volunteer service hours in the Baldwin Hills area. All of this started with her simple act of getting trained as a Habitat Steward in Spring 2004 by ESSI.
1) Fall 2004 Habitat Steward Volunteer Training: Following her training, she facilitated discussions with NWF, BHC, and ESSI to have BHC sponsor the Fall training.

2) First Scenic Trail Native Planting: During the training, one of the practical exercises placed 30 native plants on the Scenic Overlook Trail.

3) Trail Survey: Some of the Habitat Stewards from the Fall Training expressed a desired to do more work on the trail. This led to a student volunteer trail survey to create a draft self-guided trail booklet.

4) Second Scenic Trail Native Planting: The dire plight of the pot-bound native plants prompted Wendy to put out a call for volunteers to put more native plants in the ground.

Cultural diversity and community service are alive and well. Some volunteers participated in all 4 of these activities. When you consider that almost all of the volunteers do not live in the neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity of the Baldwin Hills, you begin to sense that the Baldwin Hills is not just a local park. It is a park for the greater Los Angeles region.

Many thanks to all the volunteers on these past Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Trail efforts. Special thanks to the volunteers of the Second Scenic Overlook Trail planting effort for braving the cold, wet weather and muddy conditions. We hope you will return with your friends and family to show them the results of your efforts and to monitor the growth of ?“your?” plants along the trail. ESSI sincerely hopes that far into the future, you will visit the Baldwin Hills and show your children the handy work you did for the environment and the enjoyment your helped create for the residents of Los Angeles.