The Los Angeles Times has pointed at Hahamongna Gardens Native Plant Nursery, located at Hahamongna Watershed Park in Pasadena, as one of the “12 Southern California plant shops to take your Mom to for Mother’s Day,” saying the “small but inspiring nursery” is mostly devoted to raising California native plants to help restore habitat in the Arroyo Seco.
And it’s what the Arroyo Seco Foundation has been doing with the Nursery, which it considers an invaluable asset to the Arroyo Seco and Southern California, providing low-cost native plants for restoration, conservation, park uses and landscaping. The Arroyo Seco Foundation has been taking care of the Nursery since it signed a lease agreement with the City of Pasadena to use the Nursery facility as a planting ground and educational center.
The Nursery was established seven years ago as part of the Arroyo Seco Canyon Project, a habitat enhancement and water conservation effort aimed at expanding local water supplies from the Arroyo Seco stream and local groundwater. The project also seeks to improve environmental conditions for fish and the local habitat.
Also a participant in the Arroyo Seco Canyon Project, the Arroyo Seco Foundation oversees the Nursery as a volunteer-driven facility, where community members can have a chance to help preserve their native Arroyo Seco, while learning to care for the environment every step in the process.
Experienced nursery staff guides volunteers through tasks, imparting general horticultural skills specialized knowledge for native species. These include collecting, storing, and processing seed, sowing seed flats, collecting and starting cuttings, caring for seedlings, potting up plants, hardening, and planting.
On Mother’s Day, Mom may not immediately want to get into learning the skills or volunteering to help raise plants there, but just seeing some of the several thousand native plants from more than a hundred species on the planter beds and the garden areas, and seeing friends and neighbors and other community members also visiting, is enough to provide her some enjoyment on the special day.
Getting to the Nursery itself is going to be “a lovely adventure,” says the LA Times, that requires driving through the oak-strewn Hahamongna Watershed Park, past a youth camp and surrounding stables, into a “serene little spot full of birdsong, equestrian whinnies and the constant scuttle of lizards and busy ground squirrels.”
Just bring a picnic lunch and make sure Mom packs good walking shoes so you can take a stroll through the oaks after you visit the nursery, the LA Times recommends.
Public transit is also available to the Hahamongna Nursery; the Arroyo Seco Foundation recommends Pasadena Transit, Metro Bus 268, and the La Canada shuttle to get there.
The Hahamongna Native Plant Nursery is open to the public on weekends from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. If you’d like to schedule an appointment or to learn about volunteer opportunities, call (626) 657-0392.
To learn more about the Nursery, visit www.arroyoseco.org/nursery.htm or follow on Facebook, www.facebook.com/
The Nursery is at 4550 Oak Grove Drive in Pasadena, inside the Hahamongna Watershed Park that’s located at the southeast corner of Oak Grove Drive and Foothill Blvd.
