Where Asphalt Ends and Wonder Begins: A Conversation with Mike Letteriello, Creator of the Prisk Native Garden.

Mike Letteriello is a pioneer of schoolyard habitat gardens. Over the past 30 years, he has built a devoted network of volunteers and supporters while transforming a corner of Prisk Elementary School in Long Beach, California, into a place of wonder for students, teachers, and visitors. At a time when most Southern California schoolyards are dominated by asphalt and a few ornamental plants, the Prisk Native Garden offers a rare opportunity to experience the awe and wonder of the natural world. At a demure 7,500 square feet, the garden's ability to transport visitors is remarkable. It functions as a portal to Southern California's iconic landscapes, from coast to mountains to desert. As a landscape architect with more than 30 years of experience, Prisk is a place where I go to unlearn conventional planting design and discover new possibilities. I was thrilled to spend an afternoon with Mike in the garden. The following is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.

We are here at the Prisk Native Garden on the southwest corner of Prisk Elementary School in Long Beach. In my mind, we are at the mothership of schoolyard habitat gardens. Yes, this is the template for school gardens. People come here and start dreaming.

You have built this magical place where visitors can feel immersed in nature as soon as they walk through the gate. Take us to the beginning. What combination of people and coincidence led to creating this garden? I started volunteering with Theodore Payne in 1998 and was helping with their native plant sales. Customers asked me all kinds of questions right and left, so I had to learn my native plant stuff pretty quickly. A fourth-grade teacher from Prisk, Candy Jennings, called Theodore Payne Nursery and told them she wanted to create a native garden. Because I was volunteering and lived in Long Beach, they connected us, and that is how it started—simple. (Mike notices a butterfly) That is a mourning cloak over there, one of the longest-lived butterflies. This guy will park for a long time on certain shrubs, and if another mourning cloak comes along, they will do this dance together, spiraling up to the sky. It's incredible what happens right here in the garden.

Mourning cloak butterfly feeding on Cleveland sage Salvia clevelandii. 

What was this area before you started? It was dirt and a few weeds. After that initial call with Candy, I visited the school and was staring through the chain-link fence right over there. What I saw was enormous potential and infinite possibilities. I had no design. It was just, "Show up and get your hands dirty." 

These hands transformed a patch of dirt into one of Southern California's most inspiring schoolyard habitats.

When I was a boy, my brother-in-law would take me out to the Mojave Desert, and I would see these scenes of boulders, plants, and yucca, and I'd want to take them home with me. That is when it all started. I was 15 and assembled these little miniature desert rock gardens in my backyard. When I looked through that chain-link fence, it felt like when I was a boy and wanted to build a desert habitat. We started planting the perimeter. We had no plan other than to plant a Matilija poppy.

You could be doing this in your backyard, but you are doing it here at a schoolyard. Why? I did my backyard, but then I started running out of room for my collections. A lot of what I fell in love with as a kid is not here anymore. I loved collecting polliwogs and watching them turn into frogs. I want to bring that enthusiasm and sense of discovery here to the garden. I got my buddies together, and we brought in dirt and rocks and started to build topography. Then I got this idea: What if we created a walk across California? The idea was to replicate plant communities from coast to mountains to desert, and the kids really get it. We make it accessible and use words like "beach" to explain the different biomes.

Beginning of the walk across California.

How do you get materials for the garden now? Well, I get them from all over. I don't go into sensitive areas. The Bureau of Land Management allows each citizen to collect up to 60 pounds at a time from areas that aren't sensitive. I brought the lizards in here about 25 years ago, and they've been multiplying ever since. I brought them in from Palos Verdes and the San Fernando Valley to mix the gene pool. It's an isolated island in this garden, so I want to replenish the gene pool artificially to increase genetic diversity. We've also got arroyo chub in our pond. I got permission from California Fish and Wildlife to collect two dozen chub in San Juan Creek along Ortega Highway in Orange County.

You have been doing this for 30 years now. What keeps you coming back? Joy, enthusiasm... I love what I am doing. I get to steward this place, teach kids, and grow while meeting the neatest people.

I was at an event recently where several directors of facilities for Southern California school districts were speaking about the future of school campuses, and there was a lot of talk about green schoolyards. Building green schoolyards were mentioned as a key climate resiliency and sustainability strategy for these districts. What barriers do you see to both building and successfully cultivating more green schoolyards? The only barriers are imagination, money, and willingness. I get some pretty silly lists of what the district says I can and can't plant. I go by the book, but I also twist some arms. This idea is new, and people need time to get used to it.

What about the opportunities? I see the possibilities. I created my nonprofit, Wild for Schools, to expand this and bring it to more schools. People come back that I have mentored, and now they are mentoring me and doing amazing work on a large scale. It started with this schoolyard habitat. We need a population of young people to take over, and they will be putting this on campuses everywhere. They get it, and you won't be able to stop them.

How do we accelerate and get more school administrators and teachers into the garden and incorporating nature-based curriculum into student learning? Show enthusiasm. Get excited about it. So far, I've just been running around getting my hands dirty. And my nails are ruined from working in gardens. (Mike grabs a Matilija flower) Have you ever smelled a Matilija poppy flower? I always ask people what it smells like. To me... oh my God, it smells like pancake batter.