My Passion
I have always been drawn to the outdoors. My earliest memories are spending endless summer days exploring outside, watching small bugs and caterpillars, digging in the soil, picking flowers, walking in the woods and meadows, and dreaming I could fly like a bird. There is something magical that happens when we connect with nature.
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I often feel like a farm girl in the city. My roots are in the Midwest farmland, and I cherish Southern California as home. It’s not the weather so much, though I do love growing year-round, but the wide range of ecosystems, the people, the busy hustle, the mountains, the ocean and all of it together that makes SoCal unique from anywhere else.
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I simply love gardening. I love the wonder of watching vegetables and plants grow. On challenging days and difficult times, I know that being outside will help restore my soul, improving both my mental and physical health. I want you to know that, too. That is why I started SoCal Rooted. The connection to nature looks many different ways for each of us, and it can happen even in the middle of urban Southern California.
My Story
I grew up on a farm in the Midwest. Throughout my youth I spent the summers working in the vegetable garden, planting, tending and harvesting. My parents shared their knowledge and love of the outdoors that instilled in me a passion for growing. To this day, in their 80’s, they still maintain a vegetable garden and a myriad of plants and trees, sharing with me their advice and vast knowledge from years of experience.
I’ve lived in Southern California for 30 years. In those early years I spent a great deal of time learning how to grow in our climate that is so different than in the Midwest. I moved around a lot, and each location offered a new challenge. I grew tomatoes and strawberries on my apartment patio in the heart of Hollywood, I found a spot of soil near my building in Sherman Oaks (it needed a lot of help), and dealt with a long list of urban critters in all those locations who also liked my garden. When we had our first home in Pasadena, I dug up a small space of sod and taught my children to garden.
I believe that surrounding yourself with nature, getting outside, learning, planting and growing, will help you thrive.
Alongside these decades of growing food, I also studied the wonderful world of California native plants. There is immense reward in aligning your home landscape with natural ecosystems. Not only is it beautiful, and attracts and supports a range of wildlife, pollinators and birds, it is also a lower stress approach to gardening when you let it be, well, native.
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I’m fascinated with our diverse microclimates throughout the region and have spent these past decades devouring details to adapt to each location. I’m passionate about growing food in urban spaces, maximizing areas for the most production and creating landscapes with native plants that live in tune with nature’s seasonal cycles. Our growing awareness of wildfire threat has heightened the need to align with nature and use the best of what California native plants offer in creating fire-resistant landscapes.
La Canada has been home for the past 13 years, with my family, 2 cats, a dog and a California desert tortoise. Our foothill growing zones 20 and 21 have become my specialty. I’m a Master Gardener in Los Angeles County and love teaching others how to grow vegetables and learn how to transform landscapes with native plants.
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I look forward to meeting you and helping you to expand the joy of growing in your life.
- Joleen