{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/primetotheroot","webpackCompilationHash":"46924986a792e4a723a9","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"headline":"Community, to the Root","author":"Eghosa Otokiti","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.totheroot/image/1e8R7T2d7zwTIRRslJt3k7vTFvFJUxlo-/","covercred":"Illustrations by Luna Fukumoto","coveralt":"An illustration of a person standing in front of a forest facing a waterfall.","articleType":"article","updated":"","content":[{"type":"text","value":"The sun fills the bowl-shaped garden almost evenly, illuminating the leaves and flowers. In the distance, the tops of buildings are just tall enough to be seen. The gravel crunches underfoot, and children’s laughter echoes through the air. The multicolored flora, each from a different region of the world, has a cosmopolitan character, vibrant underneath the bright blue sky and stretching for eternity."},{"type":"text","value":"Tucked away from the historic red brick buildings of UCLA’s campus, the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden serves as a community hub – one that enables the public, students and staff to bond and grow together. The origins of the garden’s modern-day environment draw back long before UCLA’s founding."},{"type":"text","value":"For more than 3,000 years, the Gabrielino-Tongva people lived in what is now the Los Angeles Basin, which includes Westwood. Hundreds of years after several waves of colonization by first the Spaniards then the Americans, part of the area was eventually named Wolfskill Ranch, which was sold to a nascent UCLA. The land UCLA was constructed on has always been hilly, but, prior to 1947, there was an arroyo – a deep ravine with a seasonal river – cutting through a large portion of campus."},{"type":"text","value":"As time went on, different parts of the land were transformed to suit the needs of the university. Native plants were cleared, the arroyo was filled and the natural water buildup was flushed through drainage systems. The botanical garden’s waterfall feature is situated where a segment of the arroyo’s seasonal river once flowed."},{"type":"text","value":"The botanical garden is one of many natural spaces where students find community on campus. Located near residential housing, Sage Hill is a native ecosystem reserve working to conserve native Californian flora and fauna. While the botanical garden serves as a living museum of plants from acrossthe world, Sage Hill focuses on preserving the nature native to California. Although both spaces differ in many ways, each possess a symbiotic relationship with Bruins – one where caring for the land produces community."},{"type":"text","value":"On the opposite side of campus, Sage Hill started off as one of the last corners of campus undeveloped and has now become a bastion of native plants in western LA. Andy Kleinhesselink, Sage Hill’s managing director,  said nearly 25 classes visited the land to learn about its indigenous plants last year."},{"type":"text","value":"Sage Hill hasn’t always been this way, Kleinhesselink said. While the site had research use for some professors, it was otherwise neglected and overrun bynon-native plants. This changed in the early 2000s when a community of students and faculty worked together to officially dedicate Sage Hill to its current goal of restoration, research and protection of native ecology."},{"type":"text","value":"“Throughout the 20th century, we liked to plant lots of non-native things,” he said. “We’re trying to do that less now because we recognize the value of the native plants.”"},{"type":"text","value":"One of the ways Kleinhesselink works to restore the site’s native ecology is through consistent planting of Californian flora, such as the elegant clarkia. In January 1965, the UC Board of Regents created the Natural Land and Water Reserves System, which is now known as UC Nature and hosts a collection of 42 sites kept for the use of university members. A student needed elegant clarkia flowers to study how to restore Sage Hill, so Kleinhesselink, who had a special agreement with the UC Nature’s Stunt Ranch Reserve, was able to collect some seeds. Sage Hill itself is not a part of the UC reserve system."},{"type":"text","value":"But elegant clarkia isn’t only found on Sage Hill."},{"type":"largeimageC","value":"{\"alt\":\"An illustration of a yellow tree with falling leaves.\",\"url\":\"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.totheroot/image/1SeyrHroKHD7Z70TZYHtI7TswYw4e9if2/\",\"credit\":\"Luna Fukumoto/Daily Bruin\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"When Lauren Wiley, a garden tour guide, led a group through the botanical garden, she pointed out a patch of flowers that was speckled like pink-and-purple brush strokes on a green canvas. The fourth-year environmental science student identified them as clarkia flowers. The distinctive flower serves not only as the logo of the botanical garden but also the theme of its Clarkia Flower Festival – a recent outreach initiative."},{"type":"text","value":"The festival first started last spring and is a place for the public to enjoy a day of activities, music and flowers. It aligns with an emerging view of the garden beyond its role as a research tool for the university, said Victoria Sork, director of the botanical garden."},{"type":"text","value":"Before her time at the botanical garden, Chantal Ochoa-Clark, the garden’s manager of outreach and education, said many of the programs for K-12 students had been informal, and community events such as the Clarkia Flower Festival were nonexistent."},{"type":"text","value":"“Now we have a K-12 field trip program,” she said. “We oversee about 2,500 students an academic year. Now we have summer camps, which we didn’t have before. ... We also have a festival in the fall, which, again, was something different that wasn’t provided before.”"},{"type":"text","value":"This was exciting because, not only were kids connecting to nature, but they were also now able to visualize a university’s offerings and a path to higher education, Ochoa-Clark said. Sork said the new programs serve students from an array of backgrounds. As she wanders the garden, Sork said she feels joy when she spots them eating lunch."},{"type":"text","value":"“Half the students come from Title I schools,” she said. “These are kids that may never get to go to a botanical garden – and we get to teach them about nature, teach them about science.”"},{"type":"text","value":"The life-altering power of natural spaces does not end with childhood."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"It’s important to appreciate nature and how it all works together in order to create beautiful plants and things that we have.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"On her tour, Wiley pointed out a Gingko tree, a type of tree that has been around since before the dinosaurs. As the ground crinkled beneath the tour guide’s shoes, guests walked up beside the living fossil. This particular tree had been the direct descendant of a tree that survived the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which had been given to UCLA from a Hiroshima peace project."},{"type":"text","value":"Late last fall, Juana Herrera Alatorre, a fourth-year English student, said she saw a patch of purple needle grass that gained a strange hue as the sun set over Sage Hill. What made it more beautiful, she said, was its connection to history. The grass was the descendant of generations of purple needle grass that had been there for thousands of years, she added."},{"type":"text","value":"“It was like looking at the stars, the sublime or getting this sense of eternity,” she said. “But it was also like you could touch it, so it was tangible.”"},{"type":"text","value":"While they are a newer face at the Botanical Garden, museum scientist Quinn Akemon said one of their favorite parts is the delayed gratification of planting something and eventually seeing it flourish. On the garden staff group chat, they and other staff members share updates on things around the garden, such as plants fruiting or flowering. Similarly, they said they enjoy watching new friendships flourish among volunteers."},{"type":"text","value":"Inside the bud of the blushing bromeliad, Wiley pointed to its pink center covered in a small pool of water. Many of these flowers in their natural habitat would hold frogs or insect eggs, she said. UCLA, like a wild bromelia, holds many types of animals that call these natural spaces on campus home. Besides the plants that inhabit the landscape, diverse communities of fauna, such as birds, form another nexus of community for Bruins."},{"type":"largeimageC","value":"{\"alt\":\"An illustration of a grassy hill with a flower protruding from it.\",\"url\":\"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.totheroot/image/1mCUBQOB24Azh899wuQaO3koXDfHnYDcg/\",\"credit\":\"Luna Fukumoto/Daily Bruin\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"During the first few birding events held in the botanical garden during his first year, Alex Fu, an environmental science student was worried he would not be able to identify any birds and would slow the group down. However, Fu said the group welcomed him with open arms, and the more knowledgeable group members – some of whom happened to be botanical garden guides – helped him learn how to categorize birds. Now, as a fourth-year student, Fu serves as the vice president of the UCLA Birding Club."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"The thing about community on the UCLA campus is that it’s always in flux.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Across both Sage Hill and the botanical garden, the transient nature of college life can present challenges for the caretaking of these natural spaces. Student volunteers, who already have rapidly changing schedules, are hard to retain since students will eventually graduate, Ochoa-Clark said. These natural spaces are faced with this dilemma of having to attract new people and trying to retain those who have an interest."},{"type":"text","value":"“The thing about community on the UCLA campus is that it’s always in flux,” Kleinhesselink said. “Every year there’s new students, and, unfortunately, every year, a bunch of the students that have a relationship with Sage Hill graduate. So, we have to strive to maintain the community.”"},{"type":"text","value":"In the botanical garden, visitors can sit on the benches and in shaded areas used for studying and meditation, especially around the stream. Wiley’s favorite aspect of the garden is the koi pond connected to the stream. She told the tour group she enjoys studying there because it serves as a reminder of why she studies environmental science. The koi use the plants for shelter and food while plants cleanse the pond water, she said, showing the interconnected nature of the ecosystem."},{"type":"text","value":"“We need to protect our natural resources,” Wiley said. “It’s important to appreciate nature and how it all works together in order to create beautiful plants and things that we have.”"},{"type":"text","value":"As the tour headed down the stream, attendees heard the gentle buzzing of the insects, the breeze blowing through the leaves and the cascade of the waterfall accenting the soundscape in a fine mist of white noise."},{"type":"text","value":"But the garden did not always sound like this. Before intensive renovations, the waterfall was much weaker, the stream was mostly still and the waterways were filled with abandoned invasive pet turtles. Allison Keeney, the assistant director of the botanical garden, worked on the UCLA Mathias Waterworks project that enacted all these changes while trying not to disturb the endangered or functionally extinct plants."},{"type":"text","value":"On a warm September day in 2023, Keeney was greeted by a surprise. While contractors hired to drain the old stream in order to widen it, they began to see roots. As they worked, they realized one of the tallest trees in the garden had its roots all along the place they were supposed to dig up and remove. So, they changed the plan. Instead of removing the tree, they redesigned the entire lower pond connected to the stream."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"Community forms from having that shared recognition and that shared care for a space.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"While the botanical garden team is still learning the quirks of irrigating the garden, Keeney said its priority is preserving the vegetation. Furthermore, roughly half the plants in Sage Hill are non-native, which Kleinhesselink said poses barriers to transforming the space into a native ecosystem. When addressing this issue, volunteers often fill compost bins filled with non-native plants, Herrera Alatorre said. She recounted how she destroyed multiple pairs of socks from how much walking was required to get to all the non-native plants around the Hill."},{"type":"text","value":"But for the people who put so much effort in caring for these spaces – it’s worth it."},{"type":"text","value":"“Community forms from having that shared recognition and that shared care for a space – for a thing, for a field, whatever that might be – and feeling that bond amongst yourself and the people and the things around you,” Akemon said."}]}},"pageContext":{"isCreatedByStatefulCreatePages":false,"term":"spring26","slug":"prime.totheroot"}}}