Hooray! This month, we celebrate two years of hard work and joy as stewards of Western Hills Garden. We thought we’d take the opportunity to share some personal reflections on this accomplishment. But first, thank you for your words of encouragement, your donations and memberships, and most importantly, your visits to the garden. Your support keeps us going!

“Our group of 3 was greatly impressed with our visit yesterday. We loved that the garden flows so beautifully and naturally. It's obvious that much work and planning has been invested in maintaining its vitality but there is no feeling of it being manicured or maintained in a constraining way. The garden is flourishing under your care and guidance! I can't tell you how uplifting our visit was--each of us left feeling upbeat, relaxed and thoughtful. And very, very appreciative!”

When we bought Western Hills Garden in September 2021, we were coming out of a dark period: pandemic isolation, loss, family health issues, stressful jobs, and a desire for something more.

We like to say the garden found us, our friend sent us the listing out of the blue, but there’s a backstory. We had always talked about owning a property with space for art, food, music, and community. We just never imagined it would be a garden with an incredible history and an important, biodiverse, botanical collection. 

Western Hills Garden has brought us closer together, created a pathway for the next chapter of our lives, and given us a new sense of purpose. It is a gift we share with the public every week through day visits, guided tours, classes and workshops, and lots of free bouquets.

We’ve learned a tremendous amount so far, while barely scratching the surface. Pond pumps and irrigation controllers, propagation tools and pruning techniques, every day is different. The length of the shadows, the color of the trees, the bursts of blooms, and the sounds of the birds and frogs define the seasons. We’ve found the most important lessons are to listen to the land, trust our intuition, and rely on our extended community for help along the way.

Our incredible teaching artists and workshop instructors have demonstrated the power of learning in nature. We are grateful for the talents so many have shared in pursuit of lifelong learning.

Check out our October workshops and watch for announcements about fun holiday programming!

We love sharing this wonderland and have big plans to expand our offerings even further. We are excited to open the garden more often; deepen our programming; expand our artist residency program; pilot some site-specific, temporary art installations; and launch environmental education partnerships with schools. 

Our mission as a fiscally-sponsored nonprofit botanical garden is to link people, plants, and place with possibility and purpose. We invite residents of Sonoma County and beyond to come for respite and relaxation, creative exploration, and personal discovery. The reaction so far from visitors has been overwhelmingly positive. Our visitor’s joy brings us pride and gives us energy and momentum.

“Thank you for welcoming us like family. Your kindness, warmth, and thoughtfulness warmed our hearts. The space is a beautiful haven/oasis/paradise, an artistic jewel nestled in delightful surroundings. We especially appreciated the parting gifts (the skillfully arranged and wrapped bouquets), which now adorn our residence back home. We hope to visit again someday, and we'll tell all of our friends about it!” 

In celebration of our second anniversary, we are launching a year-long preservation fundraising campaign.

It costs about $150,000 to run the property, with minimal staffing and overhead. So far, we have largely self-funded the garden while we build relationships with foundations and donors and develop our revenue streams

Income from programming, tours, day visits, and plant sales is growing, and we expect this to continue to increase–along with membership purchases and philanthropic grants.

But these funding streams only go so far. We also need to increase the number of people who give who make charitable gifts directly to the garden. to the garden to extend our operating runway and accomplish some critical tasks, including:

• Installing a water tank to better manage water use and mitigate fire risk.

• Upgrading irrigation to improve efficiencies and better meet plant needs.

• Hiring additional garden staff.

• Building an ADA accessible restroom to accommodate all of our guests.  

• Making improvements to the propagation house, barn, and glass house.

If you love the garden and want to see it thrive, we respectfully ask you to consider a gift to the garden this year. All donations are tax deductible to the extent of the law and all amounts are valuable to us. Please reach out if you’d like to talk directly about our vision, revenue mix, and fundraising needs. We’d love to talk to you about a challenge grant or other creative contribution!

And, if you like to wait until the end of the year to do your giving, we’ll be sending out a formal appeal around Thanksgiving. So please look for that!

As an anniversary gift to our community, all membership purchases will be two-for-one through the month of October. We have four levels that range from $50-$200. When you purchase a membership, we will email you a code to redeem a second one at that same level. We can also send a gift certificate to share if you’d rather that approach.

Buy one for yourself and give one to your friend. Or get one for your parent and keep one too. Or just get your holiday shopping done early! Giving the gift of nature is extraordinary. We feel it every day.

We’re working hard to build our Sonoma County connections. One thing we did recently was attend the Sonoma County Tourism’s Annual Meeting where we met many folks including new Sonoma Botanical Garden Executive Director, Jeannie Perales. We’re excited to deepen this relationship and others. We feel lucky to be part of a county with so many incredible businesses, nonprofits, and community leaders working to make things better for locals and visitors alike.

As always, if you know someone we should meet, or if you have a good Western Hills Garden story to share please let us know. And introduce yourself when you visit next. We love to get to know our guests! Hope to see you soon!

If you’re receiving this newsletter, you either opted into emails or were on a list shared with us by the previous owners. We hope you appreciate occasional News from the Garden.