Written by Jaide Whitman | Photos by Brandi Crockett

My childhood home sits on the banks of the Santa Ana Creek submerged by the relentless sound of rushing water and the shade of towering oak and sycamore trees. In the 1930s, before Lake Casitas, our home was built as a fishing cabin when there was still a bounty of Steelhead Trout. The creek rises with the winter rains to impassable heights when we must decide to stay in or stay out. Staying in was the usual choice. My brother and I didn’t have a street corner to sell lemonade at or neighbor kids to meet up with. Oh, the hours we’d spend outside with no one’s company but our own, tracking bugs, catching pollywogs, making forts, mixing potions. As we grew up, my grandfather’s garden — of aloes, proteas, banksias, and grass and bottle trees — was also growing above our heads. Beyond the garden are acres of grasslands and oak groves leading to the chaparral expanse of Los Padres National Forest.

Jaide Whitman is President/CEO of The Conservation Endowment Fund, steward to Taft Gardens & Nature Preserve, in the Santa Ana Canyon, and also works in partnership with her mother, Julia, managing the Blue & Emerald Iguana Inns. 

Nathan Whitman, her brother, is the owner and founder of Pan’s Garden Nursery, located in the Santa Ana Canyon, where he specializes in organic and carnivorous plant starts. You can find him at the Thursday Farmers Market in downtown Ojai.