We show up with shovels.

This is where it started for us as a nonprofit, and where we've spent the most time. We try to get out here about once a month.

Over our workdays we've tilled new plots, moved a lot of soil by wheelbarrow, filled raised beds, fixed a leaking water line, and cleared the paths between beds. The gardeners grow food for the neighborhood, and someone usually hands us something ripe before we leave. The garden's black cat tends to supervise.

UCLA's botanical garden has a small staff looking after thousands of plant species. We come in a few times a year to help the botanists with planting, inventory, and cleanup, so they can spend their time on the work only they can do.

On our last visit the staff had flagged a whole hillside for new plantings. We laid a ladder down the slope so nobody slid, and dug our way across it.

“Without Cultivating Connection this planting would have taken me ages.”

A botanist at the Mathias Botanical Garden

We walked past this corner of Stoner Park every day on the way to school, and every day it was bare dirt. Eventually we stopped walking past it.

We dug the bed out on a foggy morning, planted it, and put succulents in along the fence. We keep coming back to water and weed, and it's gotten more colorful each time. It's the clearest proof we have that a few people and some consistency can change a place.

We spent a gray morning here clearing and turning over plots. The gardeners had bagels, oranges, and grapes waiting for us afterward, which is the kind of welcome that makes you want to come back.