Bio

Jennifer Dirking has been an organic gardener for over 40 years, but only recently transformed her garden from a food desert to a habitat oasis in her suburban San Carlos neighborhood.  Inspired by Doug Tallamy’s “Nature’s Best Hope,” (https://bit.ly/Tallamy-CA-Plants) she has reached beyond her garden fence to develop partnerships and inspire hundreds of others throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to begin their own native gardening journey. Through her lectures, classes, tabling, mentoring and seed sharing, she has worked to spark curiosity and sow joy.  

Her simple tactics involving free wildflower seeds and promotion via social media serve as a ‘jumping off place’ for newbies and help them get started with native gardening. These literally ‘plant the seed’ to help people understand how to build ecosystems at home. Her goal is to provide a model for other individuals and organizations that want to take an active role in building biodiversity in their communities. Under her EcoGardenista brand, she has self-funded and distributed six thousand native seed packets and countless plants to date. 

Jennifer is currently the Chair of the Wildflower Ambassador program at the California Native Plant Society Santa Clara Valley Chapter. This group of 55 volunteers has distributed over five thousand native wildflower seed packets with informational handouts to date. Jennifer is also one of the leads of the Native Plant Resource Teams, the activist arm of the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour. Anyone with an interest in native plants and habitat can join 600 other members here: Join Us! (nativeplantresourceteams.net)