By Sam Skopp

Santa Monica’s Fairview Branch Library, located on Ocean Park Boulevard, hosted a workshop on spring and summer gardening in California, Saturday, Feb.24. Gardener Yvonne Savio led the community members in attendance at this event in how to plant and grow vegetables and flowers that can thrive during California’s hotter seasons.

Savio coordinated the University of California’s Master Gardener program for University of California Cooperative Extension in LA, before retiring in 2015 and starting a website, Gardening in LA, designed to provide a collection of resources, as well as a mailing list, for anyone interested in gardening, as well as appearing at gardening-related events, such as the one at the Fairview Library.

First, Savio started with a presentation, designed to explain some of the nuances of summer and spring gardening, which was accompanied by a handout with an extensive list of flowers and vegetables that can be grown during the hot seasons. She also brought with her spring and summer-appropriate plants that participants could take home with them.

This is part of a plan by the Fairview Branch library to be a spot where gardeners can learn and congregate.

“We’re hoping to be a hub for gardening,” said Jennifer Boyce, Bilingual Librarian II, Youth Services at the Fairview Branch library.

As part of this initiative, the library is launching a seed library, which is essentially a repository of seeds from which the community can take, with the expectation that they bring back natural, non-GMO seeds of their own, whether from the plant grown with the library’s seeds, or another plant in their garden, in return. The kickoff of this program will be held on April 7th at 11am.

“We did a summer series of gardening workshops and we’re continuing to offer gardening workshops throughout the year,” said Boyce.

For more information on Yvonne Savio, visit gardeninginla.net and for more on upcoming gardening workshops at the Fairview Branch Library, visit smpl.org/FairviewBranch.aspx.