AGOURA HILLS, Calif. — Big plans start with small seeds and TreePeople has some big plans -- to plant 3650 trees by March.  

“They’re Baby Groot but we’re hoping they get to be big Groot soon,” Jack Smith said, standing in what looked like an empty field with different colored flags. “We’re doing our best to protect them.”

Smith is the ecological restoration and nursery manager for TreePeople, but he sees himself as an "oak daddy," because he grew each of the tiny trees being planted at Paramount Ranch. He and his crew have been working at this site since October, hoping to grow a new generation of greenery. It’s an uphill battle.  

“It’s in the white oak family so we gave it a white flag,” Smith said, sticking a small white flag next to an even smaller tree that looks barely like a twig. “It’s not surrendering.”  

And neither is he. He’s determined to make sure at least 80% of the trees he’s planting here thrive. That means surviving chilly nights and lack of rain, not to mention hungry gophers and ground squirrels.

“They just love to eat our trees so that’s why we have to give them all cages on top,” Smith said.

But the worst are the invasive plant species trying to steal what little moisture there is.

“Like this nasty yellow star thistle,” Smith said as he stumbled across a bunch and proceeded to stomp on it. ”Super invasive and sharp and I hate it.”

That animosity toward weeds stems from his deeply-rooted love for his trees. He shelters them, surrounds them with snow skirts to keep them warm, and builds little barricades to shield them from too much sun.

“Typically these would grow up under mom and grandma and they would have that extra shade, but since they are exposed we have to give them supplemental shade,” he said, adding that even after they’re planted, they will be regularly monitored. “We can’t just jam them in the ground, you know, and wish them good luck.  We have to come back and take care of them.”  

The project he is working on is two-fold. The National Park Service had land in desperate need of replanting. Years of drought had killed off thousands of native riparian trees  -- valley oaks and coast live oaks which Smith calls one of the most important tree species in the Santa Monica Mountain Range.  

The loss was already tremendous, the Woolsey fire decimated what was left.  

At the same time TreePeople was looking for large open spaces to plant thousands of trees to replace those lost when the I-5 freeway was expanded. This was the perfect spot.  

“Well, the mountains are the lungs of Los Angeles,” Smith explained. “Even though we are far away from Downey, La Mirada, Norwalk, this is still benefiting those areas and others.”

The two organizations joined forces. National Park Service donated roughly half of the trees needed for the project and TreePeople got to planting, 1351 trees here and the rest at a second site in Cheeseboro Canyon. They’ll be shifting their focus to that second site soon but Smith will continue to visit this one, periodically checking in on each of his 1300 plus kids to see how they are holding up.

“When it’s a dead stick it’s very brittle, but this has a lot of flex to it. Which is a really good sign,” he said, examining one tiny limb sticking up out of the ground. “Come back in five years and this is going be a whole valley of some pretty good-looking trees.”

NPS is also doing a lot of planting. They will be installing 25,000 plants at a few different sites in 2021, 5,000 of them at this same site. Meanwhile TreePeople had hoped to be done planting by the end of 2020 but extended their deadline to March.  They normally rely on large groups of volunteers, but haven’t been able to hold community planting events due to the pandemic. To stay on target, the small crew needs to plant about 50 trees a day.

It’s been a tough year for everyone, Smith included. He lost a cousin just recently to COVID-19. But standing in the midday sun, Smith says he can’t think of a better way to meet the challenges of today than planting the seeds for a greener tomorrow.

“Putting your time and effort into helping heal nature, you are healed in return,” he said, “and I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

To find out more about TreePeople, membership options and opportunities to intern, visit treepeople.org.