Originally, the entire reason I went for a hike up the claremont canyon trails is because of the wildflowers I'd seen the previous year on the skyline trail. When I got to the scenic vista, I found a small group of people working there, gardening!

It turns out that the beautiful wildflowers in the area have largely been the work of the Skyline Gardens Project, a volunteer group that meets twice a week and removes non-native plants from the area. (They have more info on their website – they're super cool!)

Anyways, after hanging around for a few minutes, Glen asked if I'd like to go with the rest of the group to have a look around the "restricted"/off-trail area – a piece of EBMUD's land where they've put a serious amount of work into growing native wildflowers (and removing non-native grasses).

The people I met there were all super kind and knowledgable :)