Projects
How Others are Building a Culture of Place
Many individuals, groups, organizations, and tribes are kindling true relationship with the earth where they live. By changing the way land is managed, harvesting wild food, cultivating useful plants, revitalizing traditional ceremonial practices, teaching young people about relationships with nature, and in many other ways, they are building a “culture of place” through concrete actions.
Note: I am not involved directly in any of these projects.
City of Davis South Fork Preserve
A white Chevy truck pulls up in front of the main kiosk at the parking lot for the Putah Creek South Fork Preserve, not far from where I am standing. The words “Open Space” are printed on the passenger door under the City of Davis emblem. The driver, a tall, lanky, outdoorsy man with a short beard, gets out of the truck and smiles at me. It is Chris Gardner, Open Space Land Manager, the man I’ve arranged to meet here and interview.
Chris greets me warmly. We engage in friendly small talk, and then review our intentions for this meeting—to learn more about the preserve. Observing his infectious laugh and enthusiastic manner, I sense that Chris has a passion for this place and loves his job.
The City of Davis established its Open Space Program in 1990 to protect farmland and habitat areas surrounding the community and to give residents access to nature and opportunities for outdoor recreation. It is a model program for the nation, as it protects an amount of land—5,900 acres—about equal to the footprint of urban Davis itself. This acreage is made up of agricultural lands, streamside corridors, woodland, wetland, and grassland, and land that would otherwise be under the threat of conversion to urban uses. About 240 acres of open space land is maintained specifically as wildlife habitat. We are now standing in the largest portion of this habitat land, the 110 acres southeast of Davis that make up Putah Creek South Fork Preserve.
The City’s Open Space Program, parks, and greenbelts is one big reason I feel lucky to be a resident and homeowner in Davis. Hardly a week passes when I am not taking advantage of the trails established and maintained as part of the program. I am anxious to learn from Chris what it is like to be in charge of so much well-used open space.
South Fork Preserve prescribed burn seen from south levee on November 8, 2024
As we walk along the trail, I learn that Chris is responsible for stewarding biodiversity in the full 240 acres of habitat land. He needs to give attention to both endemic and migratory species and their needs for water, prey, nesting sites, shelter, and suitable vegetation. That entails monitoring the ecosystems, planning with colleagues and partners, conducting large projects like targeted grazing or prescribed burns, and being accountable to the public. Although he stresses the need to balance different priorities and needs, he assures me that there is no inherent conflict between maintaining open space and facilitating other land uses. An ethic of “good stewardship,” he says, is the foundation of both local agriculture and biodiversity conservation. “We work with local grazers to support herd health and provide safe spaces for local apiaries during the off season,” he explains, to cite an example. “The protected habitat also supports native pollinators that provide a direct benefit to farmers.”
Chris expresses what’s special about the preserve. “We are only a few miles from the Yolo Bypass,” he says, “so the area is hydrologically connected to the bypass and the larger delta.” He explains that this connection enables wildlife movement. “It is really important for amphibians and anadromous fish like salmon.” And he points out that the vegetation supported by the rich soil and moisture of the creek is important for both its own sake and for the habitat it provides. “The preserve is a haven for valley oaks and other trees, native grasses and forbs. This vegetation allows a diversity of animals to live here,” he says, enumerating such animals as ground-nesting and cavity-nesting birds, mule deer, jack rabbits, beavers, butterflies, native bees, and other pollinators.
I learn from Chris that while the preserve exists to provide for nature, it is far from natural. Beginning in the late 1800’s, humans constrained the floodplain with levees, controlled and diminished the water flow with dams and diversions, altered the creek’s channels, and built various infrastructures. He describes what he imagines the area to have looked like before white settlement: the creek spread out wide into lazy, ephemeral channels during winter and spring, bringing life-giving moisture to broad riparian zones and diverse streamside vegetation, all of which supported highly productive and diverse ecosystems. “It was a highly dynamic system back then,” he concludes.
Chris tells me that one important aspect of the former hydrological regime has been partially restored: the creek is once again being allowed to flood. He points out the silt covering the bottom foot or so of the trunks of some of the trees. “I have seen this site under water multiple times,” he says. The flooding—which Chris calls a kind of “wild” behavior on the part of the creek—allows water to infiltrate into the subsoil and aquifer, deposits sediment that builds soil fertility, moves seeds, and creates the dynamic change and physical habitat diversity that promotes ecosystem health.
South Fork Preserve seen flooded from the south levee during winter 2016-17
Chris says that human visitation at South Fork Preserve has increased tenfold over the last five years. Much of the increase occurred during the first months of the COVID pandemic, he recounts, when sheltering-in-place Davis residents and other folks in surrounding towns sought new places to walk safely in nature. He believes that many individuals who now come here regularly found South Fork Preserve for the first time during 2020. That this discovery of the preserve occurred during a time when people were enveloped in worry and grief reminds me of Gretel Ehrlich’s book The Solace of Open Spaces. Her title says it all. Here, just outside of Davis, a place reclaimed for nature has offered people genuine solace—first in response to a particular source of distress and then to counteract the effects of living in our fast-paced, anxiety-producing world. People keep coming back to the preserve, over and over again, because it offers them what it offers the beavers, rabbits, and deer—a place to feel at home.
For more information please visit Open Space Program | City of Davis, CA
Kat Anderson interview with Chris Gardner.
Edited by Eric Engles
Village Homes Habitat Garden
Craig Thomsen and Amy Medovoy
Village Homes
Habitat Garden, Summer 2023 – Photo by Beth Savidge
Village Homes in Davis, California, is considered to be one of the best examples of sustainable community design in the United States. Developed in the 1970s, it consists of 244 energy-conserving homes on 60 acres with community gardens, orchards, vineyards, shared common areas, pedestrian pathways, and a rainwater-harvesting landscape with swales and infiltration basins.
Despite its many innovative features, the original design did not emphasize drought-tolerant plants or the creation of critical wildlife habitat zones. With multi-year droughts becoming more common and severe, lawns and other large water-consuming landscapes have come under scrutiny, leading to shifts in water use and greater interest in using landscape plants adapted to California’s Mediterranean climate, shrinking water supplies, and rising summer temperatures.
In response, the Village Homes Horticultural Committee made a decision in 2016 to remove 5,700 square feet of lawn at the south entry of Village Homes. We entered into a community planning process that included garden design, plant selection, and swale improvement. This collaboration led to a garden plan featuring drought-tolerant plants and abundant habitat values.
Habitat garden
The garden currently contains sixty-five plant species, cultivars, and hybrids including trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals. About seventy-five percent are California native plants, including many local Sacramento Valley and adjacent foothill species. We are striving to establish plants that fit our overall design criteria. And, as part of an ongoing adaptive management process, plantings are periodically revised as we determine what plants do best in this specific environment. Building on what we have learned, more additions are being planned to further enhance native plant diversity and associated wildlife.
Habitat Garden March, 2022 – Photo by Bob Bugg
The planted area is divided by a pedestrian path that is a key entry and exit thoroughfare for Village Homes residents and the public at large, providing opportunities for education. On the west side, there is prominent swale that runs through the site, capturing rainwater from an adjacent road and delivering it to a nearby infiltration basin. This landscape feature is an important functional component and visual asset of the garden and complements other habitat elements. Some of the water that passes through this low point (85,000 gal/year average) infiltrates on-site, providing longer-term moisture for adjacent plants that can access deeper-held moisture in the soil. This has enabled us to plant two high-value, tall-statured wetland species, California aster and narrow-leaf goldenrod, that are floral magnets for late-summer and fall insect visitors. The sloping swale banks create topographical and aspect differences that also create opportunity for site-specific plantings.
Pollinators
Major declines in pollinators and other insects have been documented worldwide and there is recognition for the need to restore insect habitat wherever possible. Using research-based protocols for supporting pollinators, we planted a rich diversity of floral hosts that provide sequential flowering periods known to best support bees throughout the calendar year. Many of our plants have been selected and arranged to provide large clusters of flowers that better attract bees and aid them in their foraging efforts. With assistance from entomologists and close-up photographers we are documenting an impressive array of pollinators and other notable insects that regularly visit the site. Each species possesses distinct morphology, color, and behavior, giving testament to E. O. Wilson’s comment that “there is no better high than discovery.” Certain plants such as California buckwheat attract a wide range of insects, while others such as coyote mint stand out as being major bumble-bee magnets. To further support these beautiful but often overlooked creatures, we have installed a bee-nesting box to facilitate solitary bee residence. We are creating our first art installation, utilizing re-purposed pieces of cut tree trunks with central decomposing cavities that may be used by bees.
Bombus melanopygus, on a February flowering manzanita – Photo by Bob Bugg
Butterflies
Another project component has been to establish nectar and larval host plants for butterflies, monarch butterflies in particular. Monarchs have declined by over 90% in California over the last decade. NGOs such as the Xerces Society have been advocating for monarch habitat restoration for two decades, something that we have taken to heart. Narrow-leaf milkweed—a monarch larval food plant—now proliferates in many parts of the garden. Three more local milkweed species including showy, woolly pod and purple are planned for inclusion next fall. Some of the monarch’s best-known nectar plants—California goldenrod, western goldenrod, California aster, vervain, coyote mint, and the non-native butterfly bush—are well established in the garden. Along with other butterflies that are making use of our plantings, we are hopeful that our efforts will entice more monarchs. Although we do see them occasionally visiting the garden, we haven’t seen any caterpillars since 2017 when we planted the first round of narrow-leaf milkweed, reflecting the widespread monarch decline elsewhere. Nevertheless, we continue to engage in horticultural practices designed to encourage this charismatic species as well as many other butterflies. In the meantime, milkweeds support a wealth of other insects, so our monarch-support efforts are not without other great rewards.
Monarch sipping nectar from narrow-leaf milkweed – Photo by Beth Savidge
Individually and collectively, our plantings are providing many resources for area wildlife. Dragonflies and damselflies hover over and often perch on various plants, taking advantage of the many types of plant architecture. Long-horn bees gather to sleep on stems of guara, and also seek nectar from the flowers before settling in for the night. Western fence lizards are abundant, responding to expanded plant cover and an abundance of small terrestrial insects associated with the wood-chip mulch we applied to conserve soil moisture. After wondering about what might have been nibbling leaves and stems of some new transplants, we recently observed a cotton-tail rabbit taking cover in the garden.
Bluet damselfly – Photo by Larry Snyder
Birds
The relatively small size of our site and current plant stature reduces the short-term likelihood that we attract a high diversity of birds, but we are getting visits from some species and expect more as the tree and shrub component in the garden further develops. The valley oaks will eventually attain a size that will attract many birds along with a wide array of other animal species associated with this important “keystone” species that once formed extensive stands in the Sacramento Valley. For now, we are happy to see Anna hummingbirds sipping nectar from our California fuchsia plantings, along with scrub jays, mockingbirds, bushtits, white-crowned sparrows, house finches, goldfinches, and yellow-rump warblers, seeking cover or seasonal food provided by fruits, seed, and insects. These and other birds including hooded orioles and cedar waxwings are also taking advantage of the previously planted trees and shrubs that border the habitat garden including Amy’s adjacent, complementary home garden. To encourage western blue-birds, we installed two blue-bird nesting boxes, encouraged by nesting success in a nearby neighbor’s yard who had patiently waited five years for a pair to take up residence in her nesting box.
In Nature’s Best Hope: a New Approach to Conservation that Starts in your Yard, Doug Tallamy describes the rationale for a nationwide suburban habitat restoration movement to begin reversing widespread habitat decline. Linked together, these well-designed suburban assemblages can expand into larger zones of natural green infrastructure that connect corridors capable of supporting an even greater abundance of wildlife.
Ethnobotany
In addition to their wildlife benefits, numerous plants in our garden have a long history of human use: Some examples include yarrow for medicinal purposes; milkweed for fine-fiber production; and sacred datura as a hallucinogen for special youth-to-adulthood rites. Soaproot, one of our celebrated plants, is perhaps best known for its soap properties; it was used for bathing, washing clothes, and as a gentle shampoo. The crushed bulbs were also used to stupefy and catch fish in pools of water. The external bulb fibers were used for making high-quality brushes, with the “bristles” held together by a glue-like adhesive produced by heating the bulb. This same substance was used in attaching feathers to arrow shafts and as a poultice for sores. The juice from the soap plant leaves were used in the tattoo process to make green markings. The young spring shoots are edible, reported as very sweet when slow-cooked in a pit-oven. Similarly, E.K. Balls in Early Uses of California Plants reported when slowly cooked, the bulbs lose their soapy character and can be eaten as a nutritious food.
Challenges and Gratitude
The habitat garden is not without its challenges: weeds, soil conditions, seasonal aesthetic gaps, varied sunlight exposures, excessive gopher activity, general maintenance requirements, labor shortages, months of drought, and even public perceptions about what constitutes a beautiful garden, are some examples. Nevertheless, we are motivated to continue in our efforts by our love of gardening and interest in promoting local biodiversity, along with our desire to interact with the natural world in our community and find nature-based solutions to better adapt to the climate crisis. Neighbors and the public express appreciation as they walk by, comment on the beauty, ask questions, and give us encouragement. Moreover, the project has brought together friends that share their ideas, donate plants, pull weeds, spread mulch, monitor insects, review documents, and share their beautiful photos. We are grateful for all of these contributions and value the relationships we have developed through our collective efforts, along with the deeper sense of place that this project has fostered.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Dr. Kat Anderson, Sierra Baptiste, Dr. Robert Bugg, Dr. Vic Claassen, Evelyn Healy, Carol Hillhouse, Kees Hood, Uvaldo Lara, Todd Lumbke, Gil Medovoy, Ina Rommeck, Paula Samuelsen, Dr. Beth Savidge, Larry Snyder, Dr. Katharina Ullman, and the Village Homes Horticultural Committee for their assistance. It takes a village!
The garden is located between 2401 and 2327 Evenstar, Davis, CA
Contact information for questions or site tour: Craig Thomsen (530-848-8414).
Stewarding Knowledges
The Center for the Study of the Force Majeure is proud to be working in allyship with Knowledge Keepers from the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California on the Stewarding Knowledges project.
Our collaborations with members of the Washoe community began in 2013 when Benny and Laura Fillmore heard a lecture by Center Co-Founders Newton and Helen Harrison at the Nevada Museum about their seminal artwork: Sagehen: A Proving Ground, and volunteered to work with the Harrisons to help them better integrate indigenous understandings in the piece. That initial cooperation has evolved over the years. Laura is now on the Board of the Center and we have been developing a number of interrelated projects in Sagehen Forest Preserve as well as other locations in the traditional lands of the Washoe. Stewarding Knowledges is part of that evolution.
Stewarding Knowledges is designed to serve Tribal members on whose traditional homelands the project areas lie in Placer and Nevada Counties, and is a partnership between Wà:šiw and public artists, benefiting those who use public lands at both sites: Sagehen Creek Field Station in Nevada County and the Gatekeepers Basketry Museum in Placer County. The museum grounds are managed by CA State Parks, which signed an MOU a year ago with the Washoe Tribe allowing tribal members access to the parks system and creating a context for co-management of state parks lands.
Two Paths: One Journey
Stewarding Knowledges has two parts: supporting Washoe Tribal Artists in Master Apprenticeship programs with Knowledge Keepers in basketry and traditional songs. The second part is supporting the redesign of our Future Garden at Sagehen Creek Research Station and the design of a new Future Garden at the Marion Steinbach Indian Basket Museum in Tahoe City at Lake Tahoe.
Future Gardens: Every Place is the Story of its own Becoming
Future Gardens examine possible futures as places respond to and interact with a warming planet. As climate change reorganizes the planetary landscape, species will either adapt, migrate, or fall away in response to higher temperatures, rising waters, and less predictable precipitation patterns. How we can see into that future is essential for the flourishing, or even survival, of all living beings on earth. Future Gardens are long-range, intergenerational experimental places where the plant species of the future can be propagated in the present. Stewarding Knowledges engages Knowledge Keepers and allies in that re-imagination as we all move towards a warming future.
The Masters/Apprentice program is now underway. The small number of Washoe living on neighborhood-sized reservations makes the weavers and singers international treasures. We believe that our Indigenous collaborators are true leaders, and that this effort not only adds to the diversity of arts funded by this opportunity but also to the longevity of now gravely endangered art forms indigenous to northern California.
A team of five public artists and scientists are collaborating with the Washoe Knowledge Keepers, continuing the Sagehen: A Proving Ground art and science project. Stewardship, education, and re-establishing native seedlings of importance to the Wàši:šiw to traditional gathering places in the homeland are our priorities. Wà:šiw traditional tool makers and basketmakers will be on public and private lands in all of the places mentioned in our proposal tending the land; CA State Parks, the Gatekeepers Museum in Placer County, and Sagehen in Nevada County. We are in the process of planning a public ‘listening session’, a Washoe basketmakers and singers gathering in Tahoe in May of 2024 showcasing an “Indigenous Futurism,” a conversation with the Waši:šiw ‘Washoe People From Here’, modern stewards of Da’aw’a:ga’a ‘Lake Tahoe’, and our artist collaborators..
Artists and culture bearers in our group are aware of the need to decolonize our work as stewards of the land, and to find new ways to cooperate around what we believe are fundamental truths about Indigenous-led land management best practices. We believe this is our essential motivation: the time to understand the kinship that culture bearers’ feel to the natural world is right now—before we endure more warming, loss, degradation, extraction or devastating pollution.
We are grateful to the Upstate California Creative Corps for supporting us in this journey.
You can follow the project at the Stewarding Knowledges Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/stewardingknowledges/
Stewarding Knowledges Team: Artists and Knowledge Keepers: L-R Trena Noval, Laura, Benny Fillmore, grandson Dewpelelik, Cara Denosotsie James, Lisa Grayshield, Leslie Ryan, Tammy Teller, Robin Brailsford, and Josh Harrison.
(Not pictured, song apprentice Hunter Fillmore, and master basketweavers Dinah Pete and Ramona Keller; and botanist Brett Hall.)
Photo by Susan Winters, Gatekeeper Museum director.
Chico Flax Farm
My journey in textiles began in 1980 in Turriff, Scotland, as a student at David Gurney Weavers. There I learned traditional weaving techniques and finishing practices on hand looms. As I perfected my craft, I added my own contemporary artistic styling. I learned during those years that I especially liked working with linen. Although a mention of weaving in Scotland commonly evokes images of sheep and wool, the growing of flax and its processing into linen has a long and significant history in Scotland.
Back in America, people I knew were very critical of the industrial-scale, synthetic textile industry. As a traditional weaver, I was often asked how local hand weavers could provide an alternative to mass-produced textiles. It was a challenging question. To meet all the requirements, alternative textile production would have to use only locally produced wool, alpaca, cotton, and flax, and the fibers would have to be grown and processed using sustainable practices.
Of these four fibers, linen was the one most difficult to imagine being produced locally. There were no linen mills in America and no flax farmers! My husband and I wondered if we could grow flax ourselves and make our own linen. We began researching the process and decided we could do it. We had to learn the various stages of flax processing—retting, scutching, and hackling—from what we could find online and in books. Over the course of twelve years, we proved that flax will grow quite well as a winter crop here in Northern California and that it is possible to process flax into quality linen using traditional processes.
In 2018, land that had once been an almond orchard became available to us. We started a sustainable working farm where we grow flax and process it into linen fibers. That is how my business, Chico Flax, came to be. I now think of myself as a weaver turned farmer.
We are the only small-scale flax processing business in the United States. Our flax grows in healthy, carbon-capturing soil. We have been recognized as mentor farmers in the Regenerative Farmers Program at CSU Chico. Students from the Engineering Department at CSU Chico have helped us to mechanize the steps of turning flax into linen by creating inventive processing tools.
We are a socially responsible enterprise integrated into our community. We offer workshops and organize work parties in which groups of people come on our land to harvest and process flax. The people who want to learn about flax farming and linen production come from all walks of life. There are people interested in exploring aspects of their European heritage, farmers who want to try new crops, environmentalists who want to support a local textile economy, artisans who love to spin and weave, and university professors teaching the value of art and handwork.
My product line uses the entire flax plant. I sell long-line linen for spinning into linen yarns, fibrous straw (tow) for papermaking and as a substitute for petroleum-based products, and linen-blended yarns for knitting and weaving. I created the first commercially available, locally sourced, made-in-America linen/wool yarn and began selling it in 2020.
I see Chico Flax as a role model for folks who want to start other small-scale flax processing mills. I am encouraging other farmers to grow fiber flax for linen processing.
At Chico Flax itself, I hope to design more mechanical processing tools with the help of the CSU Chico Engineering department and others. I want to purchase a flax harvester from Europe and begin to spin pure linen yarns, all as part of my effort to provide locally sourced, made-in-America, high quality linen yarns and fabrics for a global market.
~Sandy Fisher
For more information see our website www.chicoflax.com and Instagram chicoflaxtolinen and Facebook Chico Flax
Our email is: info@chicoflax.com
To support Chico Flax Farm and their efforts to establish themselves as a nonprofit legal entity go to https://www.nvcf.org/funds/chico-flax-incubator-fund to donate.
But we cannot hope—for reasons practical and humane, we cannot even wish—to preserve more than a small portion of land in wilderness. Most of it we will have to use. The conservation mentality swings from self-righteous outrage to self-deprecation because it has neglected this issue. Its self-contradictions can only be reconciled—and the conservation impulse made to function as ubiquitously and variously as it needs to—by understanding, imagining, and living out the possibility of “kindly use.” Only that can dissolve the boundaries that divide people from the land and its care, which together are the source of human life.
– Wendell Berry, from The Unsettling of America, 1977