There is a place in Irvine where the wild plant life of the region – the native California Poppies, the Black Sage, the Cobweb Thistle – grows in uniform rows, stretching across a field in perfect stripes of vibrant colors.
In the background of this orderly tableau are the hills and canyons of the Santa Ana Mountains, a disorderly chaos of greens, browns, purples, oranges and all the colors only Mother Nature can blend together.
But it is the orderly that is helping to make the disorderly even more beautiful as teams from the Irvine Ranch Conservancy head into the mountains to spread – either by hand or by machine – the seeds so carefully grown at the organization’s Native Seed Farm in Irvine.
Throughout the year, the seed farm is tended by the conservancy’s small staff and an army of volunteers who weed and coax the rows of plants, harvesting their seeds for use in a campaign to beat back invasive species that don’t really belong and instead return the canyons and hills to their native glory and a place that can support the local wildlife.
“Habitat restoration is getting the plants back together again, working with each other, having the right plants for animals,” said Rachel Lambert, the Native Seed Farm’s stewardship coordinator, in her fifth growing season in Irvine. “We know the healthiest thing for nature is itself. We want to include all the plants.”
The conservancy manages about 40,000 acres of wild land owned by OC Parks, Irvine and Newport Beach. All of it is under the name of the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks, which stretches from Weir Canyon near the 91 Freeway through the canyons to Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Crystal Cove State Park near Laguna Beach.
The teams look at areas of the mountains that haven’t experienced repeated wildfires and where cows haven’t grazed, as a reference of what to aim for with the restorations.
“A little bit of fire is part of the natural cycle,” Lambert said. But if the mountains are scorched every five to 10 years, the native plants don’t have a “chance to catch their breath,” she said, and the invasive plants grow in quickly and take over.
Once an area is marked for restoration, volunteers go in and pull weeds and remove the invasive plants that don’t belong there. Then the proper seeds and plants are spread into the area to take hold again.
Much of the year at the farm is spent growing and harvesting the seeds. Crews of volunteers work every Wednesday and Sunday.
Then, just as the rains start to wet the ground in the first months of the year, the seeds are planted in the canyons and on the hillsides.
“Because in a wild area it is hard to water, we try to have the seeds sown before the rains of the season,” Lambert said. But there is a trick to it, because if they are spread too early, the birds just enjoy a feast.
The seed farm is necessary because the conservancy can’t send folks down to the local garden center for thousands of seeds of California Poppies or California Mugwart.
“If we want bags and bags of seed,” Lambert said, “we have found the best way is to grow it ourselves.”
The farm was expanded in the last year to add new varieties and more rows of plants, she said. It produces about 1,500 pounds of seeds a year.
There are a few plant types that won’t grow well at the farm and those are instead raised in pots at one of the conservancy’s nurseries, or by a contract nursery, and later transferred to the hillsides.
Lambert said the seed farm, where the opportunity to lend a hand is open to the public, has helped create hikers and nature enthusiasts. The motivation, she said: “I want to go see these in the wild. I want to see where the seeds I picked today are spread.”
“It really taps into a very deep place,” she said. “Humans, I think, need to tend to plants.”
There are also hikes planned regularly throughout the area, check letsgooutside.org/activities.
A good example of the conservancy’s efforts can be seen in the Agua Chinon section of Limestone Canyon, Lambert said. “That one, when we first starting working in there, it was such a mess.”
Weeds, taller than a person, had to be removed, she said, and now the native plants and seeds brought in are “doing very well.”
“Some places look so good, you almost don’t know it’s been worked on,” she said. “The animals have moved back. As soon as you get the plants back, the animals come back.”
