About LocaLife Flowers

Localife Farm sits on a south and west facing fold of the Santa Cruz Mountains originally home to the Awaswas people of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, who were driven from their homeland during Spanish occupation and the European colonial expansions that followed.

We consider it essential to acknowledge the painful history of this land and her original peoples, and to continually educate both our minds and hearts, believing that a bridge of collaboration can be built which will allow members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band to freely fulfill their vision.

We also put our money where our mouth is, contributing monthly, and additionally as we are able, to the Amah Mutsun Land Trust. We hope you will consider joining us in supporting their work, as the vision they are striving to achieve is one of health, abundance and wellbeing for all.

By observing closely and cultivating relationships with our surroundings, our farming methods, as well as our design aesthetic, has been shaped by the natural world.

We use flowers, foliage and unique natural elements to reflect the abundance, diversity and beauty of this mountainside and forest.

The flowers we grow are selected not only for their beauty, but for their suitability to our Mediterranean climate and their absence of aggressive reproductive tendencies. We also strive to grow multipurpose plants, capable of producing food, fodder, and medicine and suitable for air drying. We save seed and take cuttings to cultivate plants with a proven history of health and beauty in this location.

Our flowers are grown in terraced beds, hand shaped along the contours of the hillside to maximize water retention and minimize erosion. Honoring the wisdom of the forest, we choose to build up, rather than dig out, the soils in which we plant by layering organic materials and letting the subterranean wildlife perform their magic.

Rather than using pesticides, herbicides and fungicides to address challenges to plant health and weed pressure, we dedicate ourselves to understanding the real sources of these challenges, working to create harmony and restore balance. When those efforts do not succeed, we limit our use of defensive inputs to plant medicines grown and prepared on site.

Our vision for the future is to continue to learn from Nature, as well as those indigenous to this place who have cultivated a soul deep connection with this land over generations, in order to be part of the process of healing the harms done to the land by those who came before us, as well those we have caused ourselves.

We are making an effort to introduce more native plant species, which, in turn, support more native animal species. We are taking an honest (and sometimes painful) look at where we compromise what we know to be best for the land, and for the future, in favor of more immediate considerations.

Our intention is that, when that bridge of collaboration is finally built, and the vision of this land’s first people is embraced by all people, we will have contributed more that is beneficial than detrimental to that world.