L.A.I.N.A.D: Hello! Thank you for meeting with me, would you mind introducing yourself and saying what do you do for work?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: My name's Becky Trotter-Sinnot, and I am the script coordinator at America's Funniest Home Videos.
L.A.I.N.A.D: So my project is called L.A. Is Not A Desert and I like to clarify that I mean the greater L.A. area (or all of Southern California really). So with that in mind, what's one of your earliest memories of the outdoors in L.A.? If you moved here later in life, what was your first impression?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I spent a good chunk of my childhood in California but in the Bay Area. I visited Southern California a lot because that's where both of my parents are originally from, most of my memories are of going to the beach because my grandmother lived in Corona Del Mar, which is right next to Newport Beach. I moved to SoCal in 2009 for grad school and I was living in Santa Clarita for the first few years. Being up there is so different than down in L.A. proper because, well mountains and microclimates.
L.A.I.N.A.D: What was your impression of SoCal when you moved here as an adult?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: One of my early impressions of plant life in Southern California was developing allergies like I never had them before. So that definitely indicated that there were plants here to pay attention to! I also would drive to Thousand Oaks where my in-laws were and when driving down the 118 in the springtime, the hills in that corridor just turned this vibrant green. And I always thought, “Are we Ireland? What is happening? Why are these hills so green right now?” And then a couple of months later, the green would fade away but I saw that there's a lot of vegetation and that there is life here. And both of these things, the allergies but also the impossible to miss green hills of spring, brought my attention to the cycles of plant life here in LA.
L.A.I.N.A.D: It's so true! I'll say I moved from Florida to California and it took awhile to get a sense of how the seasons in California are different than anything else I had experienced. Which is also because L.A. (and all of California) is perceived in the media as this temperate place where nothing changes. It's just sunny all the time and people say there aren't seasons, but the reality is very different.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Yeah up in the Bay Area, I remember that we had all kinds of weather and fauna and flora. To me, California has never been the dry, barren place that some like to make it out to be.
L.A.I.N.A.D: So speaking of your time in the bay as a kid, did you spend time outdoors growing up? Do you have a memory from that time?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I remember we went on vacation to lots of different places around the state. One summer we went camping at Lake Tahoe. I remember going down to the lake and catching crawdads and stuff like that, just because that was different it sticks out.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Any other memories?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I also remember wildfire season, I remember very vividly one July 4th weekend, the place where we lived was a bunch of new construction and there were a lot of empty hills around. Some kids went up in the hills and they set off firecrackers and so they set an entire hill ablaze! It was crazy. And even crazier our neighbor was like, "Let's go see the fire!" and he piled me, my sister and his two kids into his car and we drove up to the fire so we could see it up close. So like California on fire is a vivid memory for me when I was a kid, because it is a thing that just happens here.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Do you think as a kid you got the sense from this memory that nature could be dangerous?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: It was kind of scary and cool. At first I remember thinking "Oh, cool, fire is a thing" but then we were getting closer, and I was like, "What is stopping this fire from getting closer to us?" And so there was a little bit of both.
L.A.I.N.A.D: So has anything changed in your impressions about Los Angeles nature from the times you visited as a kid or from when you moved here in 2009?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: It has. And mostly because of the fact that we've been experiencing massive years of drought. I really appreciate all the people who are starting to be more sensitive to it and can say, "Hey, you know what? We don't need these big expansive lawns because that's not natural." I see now that green grass is not normal. That shouldn't be the norm for Southern California.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Absolutely, when I go to large stores like Home Depot there just isn't a wide distribution of our native plants there, you have to go to special nurseries and it feels like a kind of specialized knowledge. How did you start learning about drought tolerant plants?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: When I moved into my apartment it had a porch so I wanted to start container gardening and fill it with plants. And at first I was just filling it with plants that I liked because I thought these are the normal things that you plant, geraniums and dahlias and such. But I was planting everything that doesn't grow here and one day I realized I was outside watering almost everyday because I planted thirsty, thirsty, thirsty plants. So then I thought to do a little research to figure out what plants I could grow and not use tons of water every single day.
At first I thought drought tolerant just meant growing succulents and at that time I thought I didn't like succulents because they didn't look natural but now I have a whole bunch in my garden.
L.A.I.N.A.D: What else changed your opinion about drought tolerant plants?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Propagation! I started learning how to propagate so that way I wasn't going out buying more. I was able to make more from what I already had.
L.A.I.N.A.D: I think that is pretty neat too!
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: So my drought tolerant gardening started with succulents but then grew to include native plants. I had one pot on my front step that I had to figure out something to plant in it and finally I ended up on... I'm blanking on it, but it's a native plant known as California lavender I think?
L.A.I.N.A.D: That's a type of Ceanothus I think?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Yes! And it was so exciting because I only had to throw water on that once a week. And so that is what got me excited to learn about other California native plants.
L.A.I.N.A.D: What motivated you to start gardening? Were there other resources you used to learn more about succulents and drought tolerant plants that you didn't know about when you started gardening?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Well, let's see. My love of gardening really started with my grandmother and my great grandmother, I inherited it from them. But more recently I was drawn into gardening and succulents from watching a British TV show called Gardeners World.
L.A.I.N.A.D: I haven’t watched it, what is that show about?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Gardeners World is a weekly show where one of the lead gardeners of England, Monty Don, takes you through this massive property, which he calls Longmeadow, and the plants there are insane. He's grown a whole grove of trees (or a copse of trees) and he's got several plots of vegetables and many kinds of plants. He goes through the garden and tells you this time of year is when we start planting this and this is when we're planting that and he teaches about seasonal planting. They also do a little side shoot kind of stories and there was one that caught my attention about this gardener who holds the national collection of succulents. And I was surprised to learn that there are so many! So watching this show has really helped spark my love of plants and gardening. Watching it I was inspired by everything that thrives in England but I knew none of it would thrive here. So then I thought let me figure out what grows in Southern California.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: So where did you first go to learn more about California Native Plants?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I started at Armstrong Gardens, because they have a little section that's California native plant growers. Since I have to grow things in containers I also had to learn about what can grow that way. I might see a plant that I really love but it's gonna grow to be 12’ tall so I have to research and figure out if it's something I can grow in a container or if it's something that's better grown in the ground.
L.A.I.N.A.D: I struggled with figuring out good options for containers as well. What were other big learning curves?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Dirt and soil. Dirt is important and finding the right kind of dirt in the right balance. I just thought soil was what was already there but I had to learn that if you're planting certain plants you have to do things to help build up the healthiness of your soil. And then also figuring out what soil was best for my containers. I might need to have a much more gritty type of soil and compost for growing the succulents and the things that are drought tolerant because they thrive in well draining soil. I also had to figure out what type of material was best for my pots. Originally I had started out with all plastic because it was cheap and it doesn't let the soil dry out. But then as I was learning, I realized I was planting things that wanted their soil to dry out, so I started moving towards terracotta pottery. I also learned that some gardening materials I thought had to be used, like peat moss, have a complicated environmental impact. I saw on Gardeners World about how peat moss is acquired and that it is really bad for the ecosystem as it takes a long time for the peat moss to redevelop.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Yeah. I've only read a little about that.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I start taking deep dives into all sorts of things that have absolutely nothing to do with the type of gardening I'm doing, but I'm just fascinated by all types of gardens.
L.A.I.N.A.D: That's really great. It's good to learn about all different ecosystems out there, and you never know where you might end up someday.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I've looked at trying to do gardening classes here in LA, but it never works out with my schedule. Like, do they realize that some people work during the week?
L.A.I.N.A.D: Well one positive (out of all the negatives of the pandemic) was that the California Naturalist class I took had to be a hybrid model. So all of the classes were streamed online but then we would meet in person to do field trips to learn about field work and nature journaling. My teacher said that one of the benefits of the hybrid model was that more people could take the class because they didn't have to commute during the week. So hopefully maybe some of that accessibility or streaming classes will continue.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: And that would be good.
L.A.I.N.A.D: You mentioned you were inspired by your grandma and your great grandmother to love gardening. Could you talk more about that?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: One of the very few memories I have of my great grandmother is that we were visiting her house and I remember her backyard was just a huge garden and there were lots of roses and veggies growing. And I remember taking and eating peas right off the vine and getting scraped by rose thorns. Then my grandmother, she also had a huge love of plants, she lived down in Corona del Mar and since she didn't have a backyard, her whole front yard was full of plants and it was like this secret jungle you stepped into off the main street. It was so overgrown with the trees and she had these big bushes and there were plants in pots everywhere. She had a little ledge next to her mailbox where she had little, tiny succulents growing. She always tried for a tropical theme because part of her childhood was spent growing up in Hawaii.
L.A.I.N.A.D: I love how plants can be so connected to our childhood memories.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: She really loved tropical looking plants because she lived in Hawaii when she was really little, then the family moved to Glendale and eventually to Corona Del Mar. She took part of a tree that was growing from their first house in Glendale and planted it at their house in Corona Del Mar so she always had a little bit of home with her. When she passed a few years back, I was helping clean the house and we just started giving plants away. We gave a bunch of the succulents to the mailman because he saw them every day when he was dropping off the mail and he was really happy to take some home. In cleaning up her front yard I discovered she had a hibiscus in a pot that was slowly dying. I had grown a particular fondness for hibiscus because it reminds me of her, so I decided I'm going to save it. And I did! Now I've got like four different hibiscus plants out the back of my apartment and that's one of them. And it's thriving. And so every time it blooms, I always think of grandma smiling down.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Thank you for that memory. I love that.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: It's great to have one of her plants with me. My next challenge is to try to figure out how to propagate it so I can make little babies for my dad and my sister and stuff.
L.A.I.N.A.D: It's lovely how plants can connect us to our family like that.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Very much so.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Is there a plant that has been your most experimental plant that you've tried in a container so far?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Someone had gifted me Japanese cherry blossom seeds so I was trying to start them but it didn't do anything at all. Then I researched it more and you have to have the seed in this container with water and you have to put them in the back of your fridge because they need that cold dormant time and it's got to be back there for like a month. And so I tried it, I did everything right. I put them in the fridge and they were there for a month. Then I pulled them out and then I was just like, nothing's changing. So some plants are harder to get going than others but it is fun to try.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Yes, I understand that for sure. I definitely have some plants that I'm not sure how they'll turn out in the containers in my corner. Most recently I accidentally bought Laurel Sumac, which is like a ten foot by ten foot plant that grows on our SoCal hillsides. I just decided to go for it cause it's in a big tree box at least. So we'll just see. I'm hoping I can just prune it into a small tree.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: It is fun to try harder things but sometimes I have to admit I have found there are limitations with container gardening.
L.A.I.N.A.D: What can you share about other ways to get outside in LA.?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: I have a membership to Descanso Gardens. It was so nice during the pandemic because I was able to go out and walk in places that weren't populated by cars and get outside to appreciate the plants that I can't grow. Like, I love their little lilac grove because I love Lilac and I can't grow it myself.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Do you bring friends or family with you?
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: It's been nice because Descanso is a place where my husband will come with me and we can walk together. He goes hiking on one of the hills out by us in Glendale and like he's dragged me along a few times, but hiking up a big hill and right back down at the speed he goes, is just not my thing. So yeah, getting to be outside where we're walking together is a great thing. One of the other things that I tend to do for outdoor exercise is go to Disneyland.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Tell me more about that.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Well I've gone to Disneyland by myself and then I spend half the day taking pictures of the plants at the park.
L.A.I.N.A.D: I just started following a podcast, The Golden State Naturalist, and the creator just made a post about being at Disneyland and taking photos of the plants. So it's a thing!
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Oh yes! Disney inspired me to garden too. Okay, so over in Carsland on one of their rides they have a plant called a Ketchup And Mustard Rose, have you ever seen that one? The outside of the petals is yellow and the inside of the petals is red. So I splurged and I bought one and like it was thriving for a time although I had to move it a couple times due to my new landlord and now it's very sad because it's not getting as much sun.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: Do you have any other plants you learned about at Disney?
Becky Trotter-Sinott: Yeah I was really sad when they changed the plants out in Tomorrowland. When they initially landscaped Tomorrowland, the concept was to have all edible plants. There was supposed to always be something that you could harvest and use as food. And then I think during the pandemic, because they had to cut back on their staff, they changed the landscaping to drought tolerant plants and more succulents and stuff like that. I understand why they made the change, but I kind of hope that they change back to the original concept. I thought it was a great idea to showcase how to grow edible plants as landscaping.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: I love it. I grew up at Disney World in Orlando and I honestly just hadn't really thought about all that time at theme parks as outdoor time, but it totally is! And you have to think about hydration and sun protection and keeping your energy levels going and footwear. So thank you for that new perspective on my own childhood experiences.
You mentioned your Disney inspired rose wasn’t doing as well because you had to move it per your landlords request. I understand that struggle with landlords too. I'm renting in a quad and there's patches of dirt to put plants into. I went rogue when the pandemic hit and just started gardening everywhere and it was when I moved to the front yard that my landlord was like, "Hey, could you maybe not?" The plants that I removed were very neglected, but I understood he wanted to be consulted about his property. He was mad but still gave me a corner of dirt in the back to garden in, which is very nice of him to do.
Becky Trotter-Sinnot: Prior to our new landlord there was this big strip of dirt behind our garages and I just went out there and I was like "Wildflowers, wildflowers, wildflowers! Poppies, poppies, poppies!" and the plants went crazy during the pandemic so that this spring it was so nice. I was proud of this little corridor for wildlife back in the midst of all this other crap in the alley but then we had a new landlord come and he got a new landscaper and he just chopped it all down. I was so sad because the flowers were so pretty and it was so helpful to wildlife.
L.A.I.N.A.D: Yeah, I know. It's so hard to balance renting and wanting to influence the outdoor space available to us. We have a Bougainvillea along a chain link fence and many birds have made nests in it. But then I don't get to the landscapers in time and they come through with gas powered hedging tools and the birds' nests are destroyed. I don't hear the birds in there anymore and it's so sad. Landlords, renters. It's definitely hard. That's what's so exciting about what you're doing by trying to figure out ways that you can still take care of plants and learn about the natural world through gardening.
We live in a city where home ownership just feels impossible and there are so many people here. So what are we all supposed to do in the meantime? If renters don't start trying to learn about California Native Plants and working with their landlords and trying to do what they can with their outdoor spaces, we're just losing so much ground space within the city. I think it's a really important movement. I see so much messaging around landscaping for homeowners, but a lot less information and support for renters and what they can do with any space available to us.
Becky Trotter-Sinott: By doing what I can now I'll have tools, both actual tools and knowledge, to make a bigger garden if I have the chance. I have this little greenhouse I got from IKEA and I try to propagate different things in it. Right now it's got a couple of sunflowers seedlings. Landscapers from next door left trimmings of succulents so I grabbed some to try propagating to see what works. It's all an experiment.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: Yeah. What other resources do you use to try new things in the garden?
Becky Trotter-Sinott: I use a buy nothing group on Facebook, I got a whole bunch of dragon fruit cuttings and I was like, "I don't know if this is going to be successful" And even if it is, I'm going to have to figure out how to build a trellis system for it. I also get motivated by seeing what my neighbors are able to grow. I have one neighbor whose side yard is nothing but a container garden and I see that she's growing dragon fruit growing out of pots and she has Plumeria trees in pots. And I was like, okay. And so one of my big gambles last fall was that I bought a Plumeria tree. It's still establishing itself but so far it is growing and has new leaves so that is enough for me to just go for something new even if it doesn't work out in the end. So I got it in a big container and we've had lots of new leaves coming. I think I will fertilize it again but I haven't seen any flowers yet. But I like it. I feel like it just needs to establish itself.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: I love that you're using the buy nothing group. The cost of starting a garden can really add up. I've struggled with how much soil I kept needing to buy.
Becky Trotter-Sinott: Oh, it's so expensive!
L.A.I.N.A.D.: I’ve wondered, how can this be more accessible for people? I felt like I was going to Home Depot and throwing $50 down all the time this winter. When you own a home there are cheaper ways to get lots of dirt delivered all at once that aren't accessible to you as a renter. So it's great to hear about your Buy Nothing group. Do you know of any other groups that are working to make gardening more accessible?
Becky Trotter-Sinott: I follow a couple of different groups on Facebook that are container gardening groups and some that are specifically SoCal gardening. But a lot of the container gardening groups are centered in the Midwest or East Coast where they have more rain and they're discussing problems that aren't the problems I have as a container gardener here. Then the SoCal gardening group is more about home owners and so they are talking about big projects. And so I haven't found a great resource for the niche of being a renter and having a mostly drought tolerant garden in containers, no. Maybe we should start one.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: Maybe we should!
Becky Trotter-Sinott: Let's make this niche group- socal container gardeners who rent.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: Absolutely a group where we can talk about ways to approach landlords to start a garden and a place to complain when it’s frustrating when landlords restrict what you can do or change their minds. I think most tenants want to be respectful and want to take care of the rental property, but that still can sometimes be at odds with what the landlord wants for their property. It would be nice to have a place to talk about that too.
Becky Trotter-Sinott: That would be so nice cause like my old landlord just had a landscaper and then would just completely disregard the water regulations, the sprinklers would come on every night at 7:00. And then the new landlord came and then all of a sudden, the sprinklers are never on. So he is just letting our yard go to dirt. Which would be fine if the goal was to put in water wise landscaping but I don't know the plan. And so we don't have a building manager who comes in, who's our liaison? I don't even really know if the new guy is the owner or the manager? It's hard to know who I'm even supposed to talk to.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: What other concerns come up gardening as a renter?
Becky Trotter-Sinott: I think learning how to share gardening space with other tenants can be hard. Like at our quad there were two plots for gardening right in front of our downstairs apartment that the upstairs neighbors manage. And so one neighbor planted a couple of rose bushes and some other prickly plants. It's all very spiny over there but a lot isn't growing anymore. And then the other neighbor who has the plot in front of my porch planted a big bee bomb kind of bush. It's the one with tiny yellow flowers and it just grows and grows because it thrives in our climate. But what is hard is that it comes right over onto my porch so I have to go chop it back because when the landscapers come, they just trim the front side and the top. And so I have to trim it but when I do I have to wear long sleeves and gloves and I put on a mask because it's the stuff that it's actually toxic for humans, not a lot but it's enough that it makes me itch all over because the sap is irritating.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: What advice would you give, especially other renters, on how to start a garden?
Becky Trotter-Sinott: It's ok to just try one thing at a time. I started with Geraniums, which are not native plants, but I started with one geranium and that was over ten years ago. And that plant is still thriving and I have made babies from it and stuff like that. Like just try to grow anything just to get going. But then, do a little research to figure out what works for the area that you live in. Because like I learned, I can't grow dahlias in a container in my climate because they are thirsty plants and I just don't have the space for them. So do a little bit of research to see what things will thrive, because if you've got something that will thrive in your area, then you have a better chance of success as opposed to trying to grow something that just is not meant for this climate.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: I think it feels overwhelming to plant native plants at first because the names of them might be unfamiliar. Even though they are all over our hillsides they're just not the plants we see commonly in landscaping yet. But I found it's actually just a huge relief to go for native plants because I can water my garden just once a week and I just know they're fine, you know? In a way planting native plants is more approachable in certain aspects because they have a higher chance of survival if you learn just a few niche things, they don't want a lot of water in the summertime and might go dormant but come back in the Fall. Some native plants require zero water during the summer but it can be different for containers and that's where I think it gets a little confusing for new gardeners.
Becky Trotter-Sinott: I actually just bought a water meter! That's another thing that I'm having issues with is that I can't figure out where I am with the water level and if I'm overwatering or not.
L.A.I.N.A.D.: What other benefits are there to moving toward drought tolerant plants?
Becky Trotter-Sinott: I'm able to leave for a month and have one of my friends who is a self-professed black thumb come and water my plants while I'm on vacation. And she kept everything alive!
L.A.I.N.A.D.: California Native Plants, allowing us to go on vacations worry free! Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your container garden! I appreciate your enthusiasm for learning about and growing plants and let's make that Facebook group happen!
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