A Royal Rewilding

San Marcos High School Students Lead the Way in Revitalizing a Sustainable Campus Ecosystem

Members of the San Marco High School Sustainable Futures Club at the November planting party. Students volunteered their time to rewild a culvert on the East side of campus. | Photo: Brook Eiler

San Marcos High School students Lyle Dessouky and Jack Kramer and the campus head of grounds, Jaime Navarro, offer their time and strength to rewild a campus culvert. | Photo: Brook Eiler

Brook Eiler sees potential in the dust. Dirt, not soil, is her happy place.

“I see it everywhere I go,” explained Eiler. Walking the San Marcos High School campus, Eiler sees opportunity everywhere. Conversation is peppered with enthusiastic pointing at patches of barren earth and invasive species. “There could be a stand of oaks here! … This just needs mulch.”

Eiler’s specialty is rewilding, the practice of restoring natural processes by planting species adapted to the native ecosystem, including average rainfall. Rewilded spaces attract native species of insects and birds that support pollination and growth and become self-sustaining over time, thereby requiring very little human intervention or tending. In other words, once a space is rewilded — or restored to its native roots — nature takes care of it from there.

There’s a tendency “to plant the perimeter with roses,” regardless of the native ecosystem, Eiler explained. But roses require watering and pruning, and, if left unattended, they eventually die. “We focus our thinking on tending the soil, slowing water runoff, and protecting the microbes that live in the soil by covering them with a layer of mulch, so that plants can thrive.”

An experienced landscape architect and organic farmer with a passion for native plants, Eiler has been instrumental in the creation and evolution of Montecito Union School’s Nature Lab; a three-acre outdoor learning space adjacent to Montecito Union School. Eiler’s younger son attends Montecito Union and quite literally enjoys the fruits of her labor. So, when her older son started attending San Marcos High School, Eiler set her sights on rewilding its 40-acre campus.

Linus Martin, a Dos Pueblos High School student, volunteering his time to plant native plants on the San Marcos High School campus. | Photo: Brook Eiler

Driven by her knowledge of restoring native ecosystems and passion for nature-based education, Eiler partnered with the San Marcos High School Sustainability Club, a student-led volunteer group with approximately 150 members, and the campus head of maintenance, Jaime Navarro, to identify rewilding opportunities on campus. They focused on unshaded areas, dead or dying plants, bare dirt, and water catchment areas. Navarro’s knowledge of the campus and its flora was essential; he shared with pride which trees he planted a decade ago, encouraged the students to be stewards of the land, and shared more than a decade of learning on what does and does not work on campus grounds. The group identified 11 sites on campus to rewild, selecting a storm drain and perimeter planting area on the southern border of the campus as the best place to start. The students took it from there.

Over a weekend, approximately 30 San Marcos High School students, Eiler, and Navarro worked together to rewild the culvert. In three hours, they transformed a dusty culvert littered with trash and strewn with dead plants into a planted water system, complete with pools for slowing water and native plants for absorbing it. As the plantings mature, they will create a habitat for native insects and birds, bringing life to a formerly dead space. And because the space is planted with natives and the earth is sloped and mounded for historical waterfall and flow, it will require practically no tending and thus become a self-sustaining ecosystem. “It wasn’t hard. It was actually fun!” explained Sustainability Club member Owen Eiler.

The culvert project called for approximately $1,000 worth of native plants, which were generously donated by members of the community and organizations, including the Community Environmental Council (CEC) and UCSB. And Eiler was clear that at every step along the way, the students took charge. “The kids actually have a lot of skill. They know how to lead. They know how to use tools,” explained Eiler.

After: New Oaks and native grasses planted at the front of San Marcos campus will create shade for students and attract local pollinators once mature. | Photo: Brook Eiler

Pride in their transformation was clear as the students looked at the freshly planted culvert. “I think a lot of us feel discouraged; it feels like we can’t do anything about the environment. But with this, we actually did something,” said club member Mia Richmond.

“People used to throw their trash in here,” added Owen Eiler.

It’s clear that the club members look forward to watching the culvert transform over the coming months, as rainwater is slowed and seeps into the soil, helping natives take root and grow. “My goal for this space,” said Brook Eiler as she gestured to the recently planted culvert, “is that in three years, we will hear frogs here.”

After the culvert success, Eiler’s and the Sustainability Club’s second project was both physically larger and higher profile. They chose to rewild the front entrance of San Marcos High School, which consisted of a pair of dying olive trees, exposed dirt, and unshaded benches. The project required more of everything — more plants, more labor, more tools, and more funding. With a budget of $20,000, Eiler and the team appealed to the Royal Pride Foundation for funding and it was granted. More rewilding was on.

Before: The barren planter at the front of San Marcos High School that Eiler and team transformed with new oaks. | Photo: Brook Eiler

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Eiler and a team of professionals, including Navarro, planted a dozen oaks, four sycamores, and 50 low-water grasses at the front of the school. While a larger project than the culvert, the front-of-school rewilding was straightforward and cost-effective. “We dug, amended the soil, and mulched. That’s it,” Eiler explained. “And now it just requires mulching once a year and watering.” The front-of-school project was kept cost-effective by purchasing smaller plants that will grow over time. They planted 3-year-old oaks at $100 each; larger, 5-year-old oaks can cost up to four times that much. “In five years, these small 15-gallon oaks will catch up with more mature oaks to create a full-on ecosystem,” explained Eiler. Starting small makes sense.

Rewilding is catching on across the country, and particularly in California, where low rainfall and invasive species can make tending a landscape very challenging. Rewilding can essentially take the pressure off the system by going native. The San Marcos High School projects, both big and small, illustrate various ways rewilding can take place in our community. Wild idea, right?