Five years after losing our last, more public location, we are once again deeply rooted in a place we can call home. Nestled in the Indian Valley area of Novato’s horse country, our nearly one-acre site sits among old ranchettes, open space, and nearby trails, making it a living bridge between wild landscapes and home gardens. Here, our native plant nursery and teaching gardens share the land, inviting more people than ever to join our Friends of Home Ground volunteer community and to help grow a true green resource center for Marin County. At The Land at Indian Valley, we connect the worlds of gardening and ecology, showing how beautiful, habitat-rich landscapes can flourish in everyday yards and community spaces.
In January 2019, we signed a long-term lease on about an acre of level ground in Indian Valley and began the multi-year work of building out our new growing grounds. We are pursuing organic nursery certification and follow best-management practices for propagating our plants, from seed to sale. Our demonstration gardens focus on sustainable, organic gardening methods, and we offer educational presentations and hands-on workshops to help people create and care for thriving, California-style gardens that provide abundant resources for wildlife and people alike.
We started with a field of weeds and soggy ground, so our first tasks were to solve drainage problems and undertake major cleanup. We removed weedy plants, including a small grove of invasive privets, and brought in many cubic yards of fill soil to create solid, flat areas for a large shade house and additional grow benches. Greenhouses, soil bins, shaded work areas, a composting site, and storage sheds now support the daily work of the nursery and our volunteers.
We’ve also created a welcoming gathering area for volunteers and class participants: a large redwood deck with seating beneath the shade of a venerable Fuyu persimmon tree. Nearby, we planted the first of our demonstration gardens, a manzanita habitat berm featuring more than a dozen species and cultivars of these iconic California natives, showcasing structure, seasonal color, and wildlife value.
As the basic build-out has taken shape, we’ve increasingly relied on volunteers to help with plant propagation, to install and maintain additional demonstration gardens, and to care for a small fruit orchard. Each spring, the areas in and around this orchard become a field of wildflowers, and our pond is steadily evolving into a balanced natural ecosystem with the addition of a bog and appropriate native riparian plants.
Across the land, we are planting hedgerows for habitat, along with a “fedgerow” (food hedge) and a “wedgerow” (wet hedge). We are creating floriferous gardens that attract pollinators and a dedicated way station to support monarch butterflies. Nesting boxes for a variety of birds and several bat roosting houses add to the layered habitat. Native plants provide food, shelter, and nesting sites for these creatures, and by inviting them into our gardens, we deepen our own connection to the natural world and make the pleasures of nature more personal.
At Home Ground Habitats, our aim is to help restore awareness of California’s remarkable natural heritage and to influence how people design, plant, and tend their own gardens. Our primary focus is on California native plants, but we also grow well-behaved, non-invasive plants from other Mediterranean-climate regions that offer strong habitat value. We are particularly fond of salvias and cultivate many California native species alongside a selection of salvias from other Mediterranean climates around the world.
Growing plants is a powerful educational experience: there is no better way to understand the phenology and character of a species than to raise it from a tiny seedling to a healthy, mature specimen. Many of our plants come from locally collected seed, while others are grown from cuttings or divisions taken from “mother” plants in our own gardens. We do this work because we love it, and because the results are deeply satisfying—not only for us but for the volunteers who soon discover that there are always plenty of plants and knowledge to share.
We now understand that to save a species, we must first protect its habitat. With so much land lost to development, our backyards and community spaces must become the habitat that was once provided by wild fields and woodlands. Our ultimate goal is to inspire and support gardeners in transforming their home gardens into habitat sanctuaries. By growing the most appropriate plants for wildlife and offering extensive, hands-on educational resources, we hope to see habitat-based gardens become far more common. These gardens can help re-knit wildlife corridors between remaining open spaces and provide migrating species with places to rest and refuel. If you’d like to join us on this learning adventure at The Land at Indian Valley, please subscribe to our email bulletin for notices of upcoming workdays, demonstrations, and classes—we look forward to welcoming you.