Meetings—There will be no Garden Club meeting in May. We do have our end-of-year Garden Club Barbecue and Luncheon to look forward to down at the Bluff on Monday, June 19, at 11:00 a.m. Email reminders will be sent out to members. Please remember to sign up, and to bring an appetizer, salad, or dessert.
2023 Plant Sale—Our highly successful Plant Sale took place in March. We extend grateful thanks to our generous donors, and to our Garden Club members who worked tirelessly before and during the event. Dana Point Nursery, Harvest Landscape, Plant Depot, Seaside Growers Nursery, and Garden Club members donated a selection of plants and flowers that were beautiful to behold.
This sale is our major fund raising project. Some of the proceeds go toward the Garden Club District Scholarship for horticultural students at Saddleback College. We also contribute to Vera’s Garden in Orange County, which helps heal abused women. And we give funds to the Penny Pines Project, which helps replant and recover burned areas of our National Forests.
Help Conserve Our Native Flora—Flora, a publication of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), dedicated their entire Spring 2022 magazine to white sage (Salvia apiana). The white sage plant is culturally important to local Native American tribes: they use it for sacred ceremonies, blessings, special occasions, as medicine, and as food. Most importantly: white sage is used for burning and smoke ceremonies. This practice has now become widely popular in California, and is considered a form of cultural appropriation.
White sage’s sudden unexpected popularity now threatens the very existence of this important species in our native chaparral. The CNPS Orange County chapter warns that wild white sage—a water-wise California native vital for pollinators—is being unlawfully poached from the state’s wildlands, often on a large scale. It’s then dried, bundled, and sold at local stores. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell the difference between commercially-grown and illegally-harvested white sage, as these bundles don’t always state their origin.
To help protect white sage, CNPS has launched their ‘Sage in Every Garden’ campaign, hoping to raise awareness of the impact that poaching of wild white sage has on our native land- scape. In January the group gave away 192 white sage plants at two events in Orange County to discourage illegal harvesting and encourage locals to grow more native plants.
Sage advice—We are born with responsibilities and obligations to protect the land, and to respect and celebrate our California native flora.
—Ann Strauss
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