After several years of planning and many months of careful cultivation, the Ohlone Native Plants Garden was established in Spring 2025 at the SCU Forge Garden. A collaboration between members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area and SCU faculty, staff, and students, and with support from an Environmental Justice and the Common Good grant and the SCU Community Heritage Lab, this project seeks to connect garden visitors to ethnobotanical knowledge about native plant species growing in the Ohlone Native Plants Garden area and elsewhere in the Forge Garden. It also strives to create a space in which Muwekma Ohlone tribal members can strengthen connections to their traditional homelands and heritage practices.

Using QR codes accessible via placards in the garden, or simply by browsing this website, you can learn the names, descriptions, and traditional uses of a number of native plant varietals. Icons indicate traditional uses, and audio recordings of plant names in Chochenyo, recorded by Ohlone youth and culture bearers, help users appreciate the richness of past and present Native knowledge.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of several key contributors to this project, including: Monica V. Arellano and Gloria E. Gomez, who generously advised on plant species and Chochenyo names; Lynn Hillberg, who contributed expert plant knowledge and many hours of stewardship; Ohlone youth and adults at the 2025 Ohlone Youth Cultural Campout who recorded Chochenyo names and contributed images for this project, including Alina, Eduardo, Georgiana, Isabella, Jeremiah, Leonardo, Lucas, Mandy, and Maycie; Maia Dedrick, Amy Lueck, and Becca Nelson, who initiated and sought support for this project through internal grant funding; Craig Lueck, who built the bench for the garden; engineering students in ENGR 110, who engineered and manufactured the abalone water feature; Will Jaspen and Jiaxi Tang, who conducted initial web design work as Forge interns; and Jack Landers and Anthony Ventura, who finalized this website content and design. This was an interdisciplinary, community effort striving to amplify Native heritage knowledge work. Please learn more about related Ohlone heritage projects through the Community Heritage Lab, particularly the Ohlone Heritage Hub, and also learn more about the Forge Garden and its range of programs.