By Jeanette Marantos

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — When Aurora Anaya bought her little art deco house on a corner lot in the small city of Whittier, she was excited about the chance to create her own garden. And then she met a man at the farmers market who introduced her to the plants that help endangered monarch butterflies survive.

I left that conversation with my first milkweed plant and [Los Angeles Countys] The Drought Tolerant Garden handbook, she said in a recent email. I learned about the benefits of planting native plants, and I was hooked!

Which was a great thing for the monarch population around Whittier, since today, Anayas yard is full of the pollinators she hoped to attract: hummingbirds, bees and lots of monarch butterflies, dipping, gliding and swirling in tandem spirals around the front yard and parkway that she converted from turf to a garden full of California native plants.

A monarch butterfly lands in Aurora Anayas Whittier garden, filled with native plants. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

The butterflies were abundant during a visit in late summer, despite many of the native shrubs losing their blooms. There were still plenty of flowers: small violet bouquets at the tips of De La Mina verbena (Verbena lilacina De La Mina), frilly deep-throated flowers of the Pink Dawn Chitalpa tree (Chitalpa tashkentensis Pink Dawn) and soft orange blooms of Palmers Indian mallow (Abutilon palmeri).

The names and handprints of the previous homeowners mark the walkway to Anayas front door. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

And of course, there were her abundant stands of narrow-leaf milkweed — the first native plants she added, which are now nearly 5 feet tall. The bushes have tall sprays of creamy flowers, but its the leaves that matter most. Monarchs must have milkweed to reproduce — its the only food the young caterpillars eat — so its little wonder that Anayas yard looks like a Disney movie of dancing butterflies.

Its not as colorful as in the spring, Anaya said, when her garden is a riot of flowers and the color palette changes daily. But when she embarked on this journey to transform her yard to mostly California natives, she told her mentor Cameron de Anda, manager of the Los Angeles Parks Foundations native plant nursery, that she had to have color in her yard throughout the year, including December.

That goal has come to pass: Something is always blooming in her yard, even during summer dormancy when many native plants go brown or die back to protect themselves from the heat.

The dormant season doesnt mean the plants are dead or dying; it just means theyre resting and reminding me that I need to rest as well, she said during a tour of her garden in early August. Her work planning events for a community foundation is very fast-paced, she said. But when Im in the garden, it helps me slow down, be more present and take the time to observe nature.

Repurposed cans of El Pato tomato sauce hold succulents on Aurora Anayas front porch. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

De Anda said he was relieved by Anayas reaction to summer dormancy, which is kind of Southern Californias twist on winter dormancy, when many plants lose their leaves and go brown in colder parts of the world. He did a similar garden for a relative, and the first summer when many plants turned brown, he said the relative complained that it looked ugly.

And I said, No, its not ugly, its just waiting for rain. People are so used to things being green all the time, its partially what turns people off to native plant gardening, de Anda said. Im hoping we can get past that. A lot of people mistake dormancy for dead; they need to understand that if they just leave those plants, theyll come back after the rains come. If everybody jumped in with Auroras enthusiasm, we would definitely have a very different landscape across Southern California.

That enthusiasm has filled most of Anayas free time since she bought her house in early 2021. She got her milkweed — and inspiration — from de Anda in July of that year and then took a deep dive into learning about native plants, taking classes, following social media accounts and taking tours of botanic gardens, nurseries and private gardens.

Aurora Anayas front yard is filled with a row of Otto Quast Spanish lavender and California native plants, several of which have gone into summer dormancy. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

Her interest in a native plant landscape was solidified during the Theodore Payne Foundations annual Native Plant Garden Tour in spring 2022. She signed up for the San Gabriel Valley Water Co.s Create your Garden water reduction program. Create Your Garden is a partnership with customers in which the water company covers the cost of a professional landscapers plan for a new landscape, herbicides to help kill a lawn and fresh plants, mulch and parts needed to install a drip irrigation system for the new yard.

Anaya worked with de Anda to create a design for her new garden. She hired EcoTech Services to install her drip irrigation system and remove 763 square feet of lawn from her front yard and parkways. She hired her contractor uncle to build a walkway through the garden and a short fence around her yard and then she hired de Anda to put her new native plants in the ground. Total cost between October 2021 and the final planting in May 2022? About $5,000.

California poppy blooming in Aurora Anayas garden. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

She spread a variety of wildflower mixes from the Theodore Payne Foundation and Tree of Life nurseries and took over the maintenance once everything was planted. It has meant some long hours outside, making sure weeds and grasses didnt return to crowd out her new native plants. But that yard work offered a benefit she hadnt expected: It really helped me connect with my neighbors, she said.

I was very new to the block and I was out there sometimes as late as 8 in the evenings, especially on weekends, she said. Initially my neighbors would just wave, but then as they saw me more and more, they would stop and chat or call out, Keep up the good work! Were seeing progress! It looks beautiful!

One woman told Anaya that she and her elderly mother made her house a destination point for their daily walks. She said, Your home is one of the most beautiful homes we see, so its become our marker. We walk to see your yard, and then we turn around and go home.

Aurora Anaya stands in the arched entrance to her backyard, crowned by a blooming bougainvillea. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

Anaya started sharing seeds with people who stop to ask her about the names of the plants, and she also offered tours through the Whittier Buy Nothing group on Facebook. If people were around on Saturdays between 10 a.m. to noon, Id gift them two hours of my time to come and learn about native plants, Anaya said.

All her work was amply rewarded in spring 2023 when her garden exploded with flowers and color. That showcase was amplified with her mature garden this spring. With her front yard filled in, shes had time to start considering her backyard, where she rototilled her lawn and intends to grow vegetables in raised beds. The yard already had a few fruit trees — fig, plum, pomegranate and guava — and shes added a few more, including a Meyer lemon, apricot and orange. Winter vegetables are being planted this fall.

Purple sage grows in Aurora Anayas garden. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

Her ambition and energy seem boundless, especially when she points out a small school bus that she bought this summer to pursue her latest dream: Creating a mobile store selling native plants, books about native plants and books by people of color at events around L.A.

This isnt out of character. Books are another one of her passions. The L.A. native grew up in Boyle Heights, earned a double bachelors degree in history and Chicano studies with a specialization in education in 2001 from UCLA. Then she taught at an East L.A. middle school before following her dream to live in New York City in 2005.

She moved to East Harlem and started La Casa Azul Bookstore in 2008, an online store selling childrens books and educational materials by Latino writers. By 2011, she raised $40,000 in 49 days through crowd-sourcing to open a brick-and-mortar store. She closed the store at the end of 2015 and returned to Los Angeles the next year to be closer to her family and get a masters degree at USC in social entrepreneurship at the USC Marshall School of Business.

She found her small white house with the black trim in Whittier in 2021 and was delighted to learn that its first owner was graphic artist Dorothy Gray Forbes, who designed the Sees Candy masthead and much of the companys artwork.

Figs picked from Anayas backyard fig tree. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)

Anaya also loved that the yard would allow her to continue her grandparents tradition as avid gardeners, especially because her life is pretty nontraditional for the daughter and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants: first in her immediate family to get a bachelors and masters degree and first to live independently and purchase her own home. All these things in Latino culture are not traditional, she said, but her family has always supported her choices, including her headlong plunge into native plant landscaping.

Not every plant in her yard is a California native. There are a few roses against the house and some non-native trees and shrubs she bought for their beauty and low-water requirements: several Otto Quast Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas Otto Quast), a pink trumpet tree, a jacaranda tree and a bougainvillea whose bright magenta flowers arch over a gate of the same color.

My mom shows off my garden to her friends any opportunity she has, and my nieces come over often as garden helpers, Anaya said.

Weve already discussed how this garden has brought me closer to my community, she said, and then theres just the benefit to my own health, relieving stress and anxiety by working outside pulling and weeding and stretching and just being in the garden, using all my senses and making my observations of hummingbirds and butterflies. Its definitely sensory overload, but in the best way possible.

Native plants in this garden

Narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis)

Coyote mint (Monardella villosa)

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Coastal sagebrush (Artemisia californica)

De La Mina verbena (Verbena lilacina ‘De La Mina’)

Island snapdragon (Galvezia speciosa)

Celestial blue sage (Salvia ‘Celestial Blue’)

Desert globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua)

White sage (Salvia apiana var. compacta)

Seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus)

Red-flowered buckwheat (Eriogonum grande var. rubescens)

Bee’s Bliss sage (Salvia ‘Bee’s Bliss’)

California fuchsia (Epilobium canum)

Margarita BOP penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Margarita BOP’)

Black sage (Salvia mellifera)

Point Sal sage (Salvia leucophylla ‘Point Sal’)

Bladderpod (Peritoma arborea)

Desert wishbone bush (Mirabilis laevis)

Fragrant pitcher sage (Lepechinia fragrans)

Allen Chickering sage (Salvia ‘Allen Chickering’)

Western desert penstemon (Penstemon incertus)

Hooker’s evening primrose (Oenothera elata ssp. hookeri)

Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)

Palmer’s Indian mallow (Abutilon palmeri)

Pink Dawn Chitalpa tree (Chilopsis linearis)

Western columbine (Aquilegia formosa)

Monarchs dance in swirls in Aurora Anayas garden over a tall, profusely blooming narrow-leaf milkweed. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via TNS)