Seed the Future

The Wildflowers Forever Project

"Happiness Held is the Seed...Happiness Shared is the Flower." -J.H.

In the winter of 2018-2019, the rains returned to California. All winter it rained and in Spring everyone rejoiced at the superblooms of wildflowers. But there was a time when the rain came most winters and the wildflowers and the chaparral bloomed every spring and most of summer.

That time can come again!

Imagine...if all of us planted even a few seeds, California could bloom again. If enough of us participate, we can help re-establish depleted flower populations that benefit the wildlife that depend on them, as well as all of us who live here and those who come after us.

For the last 3 years, every winter I order California wildflower seeds, including endemics, true natives, and non-invasive naturalized species with 'Native' or 'Naturalized' USDA status. I chose species with widely varying ideal growing conditions so I could scatter the mix anywhere and SOMETHING in the mix would like the location. I made mixes of over 23 species, which I then scattered in likely-looking growing areas in December, January and February.

It is working. Flowers come up, some survive to flower and produce seed for next year's flowers, and previously sparse areas are showing colors again. This has been a personal project that I now want to offer to everyone--not only because it is fun and gratifying to see the flower fields where I have scattered seed months before, but because the seeds aren't cheap! I can only afford about 20 lbs of seed mix a year--enough for a mere 50,000 square feet of wildflowers.

I'd like to see an additional HALF MILLION square feet blooming again after this year, and for that I need your help. We need about 200 pounds of seeds for that, and we need a lot of people willing to take some seeds and scatter them in their garden, on their land, or anywhere else. If it goes well, next year we can aim even higher! When we all dream together, sometimes we wake to find the world has changed during the night, or at lest bloomed :)

Every contributor towards the goal (per the instructions below) will receive 1-oz packets of a Poppy Seed Mix OR a 23-Species Wildflower Mix. One 1-oz packet for each $10 donation:

Poppy Seed Mix: 4 different California poppy varieties

Wildflower Mix: 23 different native or naturalized annuals and perennials

(Click Here for a list of species contents and pictures of what they will grow into. You can download and print this list for kids (of all ages!) to ID and learn about the flowers that result from your planting.)

Thinking of sending flowers to someone this season? Why not send wildflowers?

-Great gift for the holidays, birthday (or any occasion!)

-Great service opportunity for schools or clubs!

-Fun conservation learning project for kids!

Your contribution will cover the seeds, packaging, printing, additional seed mix scattering and mailing costs and with your help we can meet our goal of 500,000 more square feet of flowers this year (and next year even more)!

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:

1. Donate any amount in multiples of $10; you (or someone you choose) will get one seed packet for each $10.

2. All donors receive a form email; hit 'Reply' and fill out the 'Recipient' info in form (to you or as a gift) and email it back so I know what seeds to send to whom--SUPER simple!

3. Await your seeds in the mail and enjoy planting! The seed packets come with Welcome Letters and links to the Plant ID Guide and our social media.

So here's what an email reply to me would look like for someone donating $40 and sending seeds to 3 different people. :

**Contributions over $100 will also receive one FREE additional Wildflower Seed Mix packet!

**All seed packets mailed with an Introductory Letter and PlantingGuide and the link/QR code to the https://drive.google.com/file/d/1riobj_EyDEIvkiWQoeDR2pgvzlraXmMS/view?usp=sharing

Let's put some wildflowers back on our hills and back in our yards, to bloom for us next spring and our grandchildren's great-grandchildren!

Why would I go to the trouble, you ask? Why not just let it alone or let someone else deal with this?

HERE'S WHY I STARTED DOING THIS:

Years of drought and worsening fires have reduced the glorious SoCal flowers to a shadow of their past glory. Many native plants are in decline and invasive grasses push out the flowers. Each dry winter and bad fire, every predator of seed-eating rodents and birds that has to move away due to lost habitat, means fewer seeds survive to re-flower our hills.

Here's a great example of the impact of too much f ires , even for our fire-loving chaparral: it changes into weedy, non-native grassland. Far left = old-growth chaparral stand last burned in 1970. It re-established well. The middle/left burned again in 2001, and is now mostly chamise, deerweed, and several other shrub species. But the right burned AGAIN in 2003 and is now dominated by non-native grasses. The interval between the fires was too short and the chaparral was eliminated, and the years of drought favor the grasses.

In 2018, the Woolsey fire burned up to 85% of the remaining native habitat in the Santa Monic a Mountains . Less habitat and resources make wild animal life tougher, and increasing development and fence proliferation are barriers to animal migrations searching for increasingly scarcer food, water, and living space.

When an environment--even our drought tolerant, fire-loving chaparral-- -is impacted so negatively and so significantly by human activity (after all, we even light most of the wildfires!), I believe it is not ethical to simply claim a policy of non-interference in nature, and not help responsibly when the environment suffers a huge setback. We have ALREADY interfered, very negatively!

"Hands-Off" ecological restoration is the old paradigm and not as effective in heavily depleted species or environments--just ask the condor, golden and bald eagles, the channel islands fox, or the steelhead trout in the restored Malibu Lagoon what they think of the helping hands that saved their populations through intense efforts.

Woolsey fire aftermath photo: Kinga Phillips

Most of us living here love that we share our living space with wild animals. We are one of the two megacities in the world where large mammalian predators, mountain lions,actually live within the city limits !!

Griffith Park Mountain Lion (Photo Credit)

I love it here. I love the coyotes prowling the neighborhoods at night, the Peregrine falcons hunting among the skyscrapers, I love the lizards and even snakes that sometimes end up in our homes....I love living in a megacity that somehow never managed to push the wild completely out of it.

Urban Coyote On Her Way To (From?) Work

My work as CEO of the medical aid organizationFloating Doctors has taken me to some wild and beautiful places over the years, and I have grown to love the jungle and the tropics. But the blinding blue of a hillside covered in lupine in May, the smell of the sage at night, and of the mountains damp with sea-mist left like little cat prints on the hills, is how I know I am truly home.

"I always wondered why somebody didn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody." -Lily Tomlin

Happy planting, everyone! -Dr. Ben

Photo Matthew Robinson