Garden Tips: A Trip to Franklin Canyon Orange Grove

By BRUCE SCHWARTZ | Contributing Writer

We recently visited Los Angeles Parks Foundation’s historical 4.3-acre orange grove adjacent to Beverly Hills: Franklin Canyon Orange Grove. Yes, that’s right—a just-over-four-acre orange grove adjacent to Beverly Hills.

It is a historical orange grove with some trees in it that are over 100 years old. LA Parks Foundation is the steward of this historically significant four acres that is a time capsule to our agricultural past.

“Under LA Parks Foundation’s Adopt-a-Park program, the David Bohnett Foundation sponsors the grove annually to support regular orchard maintenance and landscaping of the site,” according to the LA Parks Foundation website. “The trees are harvested each year by volunteers with Food Forward who distribute the fruit to local hunger relief agencies.”

We are volunteering to create an organic fertilizer program for this orange grove, and we might be looking for a few volunteers to help us. It would be an educational and rewarding project to bring the orange grove back to optimum health, using volunteers—young and old—to help us apply the amendments needed to bring the trees back to optimum health and production.

I found out about the orange grove at the Earth Day booths that were set up by Resilient Palisades on Swarthmore in April. I met Justin Yoshimaru of LA Parks Foundation at its booth, and he told me about the four-acre orange grove it takes care of at the foot of Beverly Hills.

I became so excited. Being an agricultural consultant specializing in plant nutrition for 20 years, I jumped at the prospect of volunteering to help use some of the “useless knowledge” that I have accumulated over the years that is buried deep in my head on plant nutrition.

John Atwill, from Grow More, and his daughter Adelaide, freshly graduated from Iowa State University’s agricultural program, and myself met with Yoshimaru and Tony Budrovich of LA Parks Foundation at the orange grove on Thursday, May 2. I must say that we were impressed with the overall health and stewardship of the grove. We are going to build a program using compost and trace nutrients that will impress.

If any readers of this column are interested in volunteering or donating to the orange grove, contact me or LA Parks Foundation. It will be rewarding to be involved in preserving a piece of agricultural history in Los Angeles.

Bruce Schwartz is a 24-year resident of the Palisades Highlands. He was an agricultural consultant for 20 years, specializing in soil nutrition for crops grown in the Central Valley. He was named Pacific Palisades’ Citizen of the Year in 2017 and a Golden Sparkplug award winner in 2013, and is a member of several community organizations. To reach Schwartz, call 310-779-1773 or email bruceschwartz@rodeore.com.