Thanks for giving us a great tour of the house, grounds and groves here at Orcutt Ranch.

Robert Baker: Sure. It’s also known as Sombre del Robles – in the shade of the oaks.

First, Robert, what does your job entail? How many people, how many parks, you are supervising?

Robert Baker: Approximately 53 “staff” at this time. “The Valley West District maintains 34 parks and equestrian trails in the District. There are six districts in the Valley Region.

How did you get to your current position?

Robert Baker: After 20 years waiting tables and managing restaurants, I decided I wanted to go back to my roots and garden, and I had a perfect opportunity. I had a friend working in the wildlife reserve in the Sepulveda Basin, and I filled out an application for the City for Gardener Caretaker. I had to wait almost a year for the test to come up. I got an interview, and they hired me. I’m very happy that I was hired on, but very soon after becoming a Gardener, within the first five years, they found out that I had a little administrative expertise, and I’ve been in the office ever since.

Orcutt History

When did the Orcutt Ranch come into the City?

Robert Baker: I believe it’s right around 1963 when Orcutt Ranch was named historical landmark number 31 in the City of Los Angeles. They thought it was a beautiful area botanically. It has its own basic arboretum here that Mrs. Orcutt had planted. It’s quite a unique planting in its own right, and for it to be kept for future generations, the City took it over I believe in the late 1960s, and it’s been a wedding facility ever since. The garden plots were developed around 1967. There are 134 garden plots that different community members lease on a yearly basis, and Rec and Parks’ maintenance department takes care of that as well.

Club CEO John Hawkins with Robert Baker, Park Maintenance Supervisor.[/caption]

The City’s been cultivating not just the community garden area but all the groves?

Robert Baker: Right. There’s still 25 acres of property here. Two-thirds of it is citrus, Valencia oranges and white grapefruit, and we have some of the oldest groves of oak trees in Los Angeles, with 680-, 550- and 800-year-old coastal and live oaks.
Any idea how many visitors you get other than the weddings and events and things?
Robert Baker: It’s a little difficult to say because the neighbors have been coming here for years to walk every day. This is a City park. It’s open to the public 365 days a year from sun up to sun down. I’ve never had a count, but there are a lot of people who still think that this is a private residence when they drive by, even though there’s a sign out front. It’s a nice surprise to come through here and enjoy the property.

Robert Baker, Park Maintenance Supervisor (middle) explains Orcutt’s event space to Club CEO John Hawkins (left) and Alive! editor John Burnes.[/caption]

A Horticultural Surprise

With the wealth of horticulture, of plants and roses and trees, it’s unbelievable what’s in here. Are people ever surprised when they come in here thinking this is a City park and yet it’s just packed with flora?

Robert Baker: They’re very surprised. Roscoe Boulevard is a two-lane road right out front, and when you walk in here there’s a myriad of trees. There’s a complete arboretum – there’s a bunya-bunya tree, oak trees of all different sizes and ages, the magnolia trees, the dogwood trees, pittosporum that have grown from secondary hedges up into full trees, and the bamboo grotto, that’s here, too. It is quite surprising. People just walk around for hours.

Why a Horticultural Section?

Why does the City have a horticultural section? Why is this important to the City to maintain facilities that are intensively botanical and horticultural?

Robert Baker: I think it’s important for the younger generations so they can come and enjoy something that they probably don’t get to see in their own neighborhood. The Valley has grown over the years, and it gets kind of congested out here. People live in apartments, and they don’t have their own yards and their own backyards. They literally can come here and enjoy nature. There are birds flying around. There are butterflies. It’s an amazing place just to enjoy. I see children come out here, and they’re kind of amazed at everything that they see.

Just on our tour this morning we’ve seen lots of people walking around. We saw a person meditating.

Robert Baker: Sure. People come here to enjoy the space, and it’s a piece of nature – when you come in here you’re taken back to another time. The Valley used to be wide open, but it’s very congested now, and there are a lot of apartment buildings now. This is a space for people to come to completely relax and lose themselves in this environment.

The Fruit Picks

Talk about your fruit picks program, when you invite the public in to pick fruit – for a fee, of course.

Robert Baker: Right. The white grapefruit here at Orcutt Ranch are ripe and ready in February, so the second week in February is when we usually have our pick. It’s brisk in February, but that’s when they’re ripe, and families come out, and they pick grapefruit. We sell them for about $4 for a bag, $5 for a regular fruit box. We rent pickers for $1, and one lady thought it was renting a guy to go out and pick for her, but these are actually pole pickers. They have a basket on the end, and we show the people that have never done this type of thing before how to use it. It’s something different for people to do, too, because they get back to nature here.

That’s twice a year.

Robert Baker: That’s in February for the grapefruit. Now, the Valencia oranges are ripe and ready in June and July, and we always have our fruit pick the weekend right after the Fourth of July, so this year it’s the 7th and 8th on a Saturday and Sunday, from 7 a.m. till one p.m., We always close at one o’clock because on Saturday and Sunday we usually have a wedding in the afternoon, so we have to be out of here. We open up the property to the public, let them come in and enjoy. Throughout the year we don’t allow any picking, because, again, the fruit isn’t ready at that time, but after our fruit pick the trees still have to be cleared of all the fruit. Yearly we are contacted by an origination called Food Forward. They assist in stocking food banks, distribution areas, and giveaways to displaced people and people of need. They picked more than 4,500 pounds of fruit last year after our public weekend of fruit picking, assisting us in clearing our trees for the next season.

And you say 300 or 400 people might come by for the fruit picks?

Robert Baker: At least, or more.

All ages?

Robert Baker: They’re all ages. I’ve got little kids who come in, and the people who are running summer schools, sometimes they’ll bring in bus loads of children. The families come from all over, and it’s something that they look forward to every year.

Is there another park in the City that does fruit picks, or is this the only one that you know?

Robert Baker: This is the only one that I know of at this time. The proceeds from our fruit pick go back to maintain Orcutt Ranch – we replace trees, shrubs, roses and the flower beds here.

Robert Baker, Park Maintenance Supervisor, is interviewed by Club CEO John Hawkins (left) and Alive! editor John Burnes in the Orcutt Ranch event space.[/caption]

Gardening Is Personal

That’s awesome. Robert, you had a community garden plot here, but you have a big plot at your home. Why is horticulture important to you? What does it say to you? How do you express yourself through growing things like this?

Robert Baker: For myself – instead of going to the grocery store and just buying something, you have the pleasure of touching the earth itself and literally having a relationship with your plants and shrubs … watching them grow and having the satisfaction of growing zucchini and tomatoes and having them start from a seed, and pick them and eat them, to see it from start to finish. It’s very rewarding.

And you’ve done it since you were five.

Robert Baker: I’ve been gardening since I was four or five years old. My father put a rake in my hand. I remember he would make the furrows, and he’d have me down on my hands and knees putting spring peas in the ground, and then we’d cover them with plastic before the last frost so that they’d start to come up. He taught me all these things because he was a gardener himself for many years. I think he did it because he didn’t want to bend over and plant the seeds himself, so he put me to work. But he gave me the incentive to keep on with it.

This has to be about the biggest garden a person could have, and it’s an amazing garden. You’ve continued since you were a child, and now look what we have. In your own words, invite people to come here and enjoy the City. Invite people to come and visit.

Robert Baker: Sure. It’s absolutely beautiful. The walkways that we have here are open for adventure, and everyone is welcome in this park. If you’ve never been to Orcutt Ranch, you should treat yourself.

And pets, too.

Robert Baker: Sure. You can bring your pets here. They should be on a leash. Every park in the city is dog friendly, but this is not an off-leash dog park, so please be respectful of that and other people. Keep your dog on a leash.

And of course we know you don’t take care of all of this on your own.

Robert Baker: Right. Of course I couldn’t do all this work myself without my amazing staff – my Lead Sr. Gardener, Vel Lauterio, and Gardener Caretakers Ismael Contreras, Tony Zamora and half-timer Ramon Lomeli. They do the majority of the work here at Orcutt Ranch, keeping up the beauty of the gardens.

Great. Thanks for sharing all this, and taking us on a tour of this beautiful place.

Robert Baker: Thank you, gentlemen.